Revelations of the Labyrinth
by Kimberly T
Summary: Many surprises in store, for both the Labyrinth and the Manhattan Clan! Some good, and some not so good... this multi-parter is #3 thru 7 in the series.
1. Tooth and Nail

All the characters appearing in Gargoyles and Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles are copyright Buena Vista Television/The Walt Disney Company. No infringement of these copyrights is intended, and is not authorized by the copyright holder. All original characters are the property of Kimberly T.

**LIFE GOES ON**

_**Revelations of the Labyrinth, Part I (Tooth and Nail)**_

By Kimberly T.

Dawn was moments away, as Goliath crouched down on Elisa's balcony, caped his wings and tucked his tail under, trying to make an unobtrusive object of himself. Last night had been her night off again, and as they'd agreed before becoming lovers, he spent every moment of the night that he could with her, even to the point of staying to sleep on her balcony instead of leaving earlier to rejoin his clan on the battlements of their castle. "Sleep well, Big Guy," Elisa said as she leaned over to plant a kiss on his cheek.

He turned his head to give her a proper kiss, saying, "May you sleep well also, belov--" The crackling of skin converting to stone cut off the rest of his words, and he went to his stone rest with his head till turned towards her and a smile on his face. She smiled, tracing the outline of his own smile with a fingertip, then reached for the heavy vinyl tarp she'd bought from a hardware store last week, and draped it carefully over him. With any luck, anyone looking their way later on in the day would think she just had some patio furniture she was covering up to protect from the elements when not in use.

When she'd bought the tarpaulin, she'd also bought a few dozen fishing weights and painstakingly sewed them to the edges of it (very painstakingly--she'd stuck herself almost a dozen times. No Suzie Homemaker in residence here), so hopefully it wouldn't be blown away by the first stiff breeze. She'd thought about actually tying the corners down onto Goliath's toes or something, but he'd vetoed that suggestion (no pun intended), arguing that if, for some reason, she couldn't pull the cover off before he awoke, the stone shards would rip right through a close-tied tarpaulin. A cover more loosely anchored would have enough "give" with the impact of each shard that it would last far longer, and not have to be replaced with every sleepover. (She suspected there was also a bit more to it; being tied down even while asleep was probably just a little too reminiscent of all the times he'd been captured and held captive by various foes.) She sighed as she finished draping the tarp, wishing it wasn't necessary, but as long as those damned Quarrymen were out there, packing Quarryhammers and spreading their fear-mongering leaflets, they had to be extremely careful.

She looked off in the direction of the castle or a moment, wondering what his clan's last words had been before dawn had turned them to stone as well. Goliath had told her that he'd made it clear to Hudson and Brooklyn last night, before coming over, that they were not to expect him until two dawns later. He had his communicator with him, so they could contact him in case of emergency, but unless something came up that the clan's second-in-command and elder didn't feel they could handle on their own, he wanted uninterrupted time with Elisa. As he'd told Elisa later, Brooklyn and Hudson had all but smirked at each other before saying they understood. "I haven't told them about our becoming mates yet," Goliath had told her last evening, while holding her hand and looking deep into her eyes, "because that announcement should come from both of us together. However, I'm sure they suspect it; indeed, I'd be surprised if the entire clan hasn't guessed it by now." He'd then hinted, rather broadly, that he wanted them to have a proper mating ceremony, on the castle battlements in front of the whole clan.

Elisa still wasn't sure why she'd ignored the rather blatant hint. It wasn't as if she was ashamed to admit to the other gargoyles that they were mates; there were times when she wanted to drive through the streets of Manhattan with a bullhorn, proclaiming to everyone in the city that she and Goliath were in love. She loved him with all her heart, and he was the most wonderful being she could imagine, and it still amazed her sometimes that he could possibly be romantically interested in little ol' wingless Elisa. So why didn't she want a mating ceremony?

Maybe because Goliath insisted it had to be done at the castle, and that was a place Elisa still was highly reluctant to go. No matter that it was the gargoyles' ancestral home for over a thousand years, these days it was in the hands of David Xanatos, the one man she hated above all others for what he'd done to the gargoyles and to her family. He may have told the gargoyles that he'd turned over a new leaf, and wanted to repay all the damage that he'd done over the last two years, but as far as Elisa was concerned his word wasn't worth the breath it took to say it. He'd lied to them, played them all for fools time and time again, damn near killed them a few times, mutated her brother Derek into a winged creature that didn't dare show his head in the light of day… She couldn't just shoot him in cold blood; that would be wrong, against everything she'd sworn to uphold when she'd first put on her badge. But if the earth would one day happen to open up under his feet and swallow him whole, she'd be delighted to wave bye-bye to him as he dropped out of sight.

Ah, enough of that line of thought, it didn't do anything but shove her blood pressure up a few notches. Right now, she needed to relax, get some sleep and prepare for another night of passion with her lover. Goliath had hinted just before dawn that he had something special in mind for the next evening, though she had no idea how they could top last night; she and Goliath had spent it most thoroughly enjoying each other's company, in nearly every room of the apartment. (Funny, but she'd never thought of the kitchen counters as being conducive to romantic liaisons before. Surprise, surprise! Goliath really had quite the imagination, when it came to loving her.) She was a little surprised she could still walk as she tottered inside, closed the balcony doors behind her and toddled off to the bedroom.

On her way to bed, Elisa took a moment to check the bottom of her closet again, even though she knew what she would find there: a huge golden amulet made in the shape of a sun, done in the distinctive Mayan style of art. She had hardly believed her eyes when Goliath had presented the Guatemalan gargoyles' greatly-treasured and long-lost Sun Amulet to her last night, wrapped inside a worn cotton shawl that she vaguely remembered seeing once before, lying in a corner in the clocktower. Goliath had confessed to her that he'd been just as flabbergasted when Broadway had shown it to him the night before. It seemed that it had been resting in a museum in Manhattan for years, and no one had known it was more than just an example of ancient South American art until Hyena had broken into a museum to find it while Goliath and Elisa were in Guatemala. Broadway and Lexington had stopped her, then debated about what to do with the artifact. They'd heard Hyena saying something about destroying gargoyles with it, and they had wondered whether or not they should break it into pieces to keep that from happening, but had ultimately decided to just take it back home with them and hide it in the clocktower. And by the time Goliath and Elisa had returned home from their world travels, months later, they had forgotten all about it!

When the clocktower had been destroyed by the Hunters, the cloth-covered amulet had been jolted out of its corner and nearly fallen into the crater in the middle of the floor; that was where Broadway had found it when the clan had gone scavenging for their old possessions a few nights ago. As with most of the clan, he didn't quite trust Xanatos completely just yet, and so he'd refrained from bringing it straight to their new home, instead hiding it inside an air conditioning vent on a nearby rooftop, to show to Goliath later when they were on patrol. Elisa shuddered again to think about how close the Guatemalan gargoyles had come to losing their ability to stay flesh by day, not just once but twice or even three times, then vowed again to keep the amulet safe until they could find a way to ship it back to its rightful owners.

Just around noon, Elisa was awakened by somebody pounding repeatedly on her apartment door. She groaned, squinted at the clock, groaned again and decided to get up just long enough to maim whoever it was. "I'm coming, already!" she shouted as she struggled into her favorite baggy sweatshirt and sweatpants, kept handy for just this sort of daytime occurrence. "Keep your shirt on, all right?" But whoever it was kept knocking away like they were playing a drum solo on her door. Grumbling under her breath about rude people, and if this wasn't a medical emergency then she'd by God turn it into one for her mysterious caller, she made her way to the door and opened it.

A smile full of brightly flashing teeth was her first impression; after a second or two she saw the face behind it, framed by raggedly-cut short black hair, and squinted as she tried to dredge a name up from memory. "Um, I know you… Dana, right?" One of the Labyrinth dwellers, who had appeared a little over six months ago.

Dana nodded, and her hands came up to dance and gesture in the air in front of her. Elisa shook her head confusedly, then sighed as she took the chain off the door and gestured for Dana to come in. She was a little embarrassed to admit that she still didn't know even the ABC's of sign language, even though Derek had urged her to learn it along with him so they could communicate better with Claw, the mute mutate who helped him protect the Labyrinth, and with Dana, who was completely deaf.

As she fumbled for a piece of paper and pen, she recalled that Dana had been the driving force behind Claw, Derek and Maggie learning standard American Sign Language. Before her arrival, Claw had tried to make do with pantomime and occasionally scratching words out on whatever surface was handy. Then Dana had appeared out of nowhere, wearing only a pair of ragged jeans and holey sneakers, and a T-shirt that read on the back "I'm not deaf, I'm just ignoring you." As with Claw, they still had no idea where she had come from, why she was deaf, how she had become homeless or even how she had found her way into the Labyrinth; she'd just appeared in the main kitchen one evening, made herself a sandwich and started adding pepper to the big pot of stew. (Probably to disguise the taste of rat, Elisa now realized.)

Dana could read and write, could lip read quite well, and even talked aloud occasionally (though her voice sounded very strange, probably because she couldn't even hear herself talking), so she'd always been able to make herself understood. But once she'd discovered that, though Claw could hear better than the average human, he had no voice to speak with, she'd somehow produced a dictionary and teaching guide for American Sign Language out of thin air. Either because of her disability or despite it, she had a force of personality that would not be denied, and she'd coerced the mutates and about six other prominent Labyrinth residents into learning ASL. Now several tunnel dwellers were routinely using sign language to talk with her and Claw, and sometimes with each other when the subways roared over their heads in the noisier sections of the Labyrinth.

Yawning, Elisa grabbed some paper and a pen from the phone table and handed them to Dana, only to find the Labyrinth dweller holding two pieces of paper out to her. She took it and focused at the top sheet to read:

Dear Elisa,

I hope you're not too disturbed by this, and I'm sorry to have

to ask, but would you please do a little shopping for us? There are some

things we simply can't scrounge for ourselves down here, or get from

homeless shelters, and we really could use them. I'm sending this list

along all the money we've pooled together for shopping; I hope it's enough,

but it probably isn't. We'll try to pay you back later, for what the money

doesn't cover. Dana has volunteered to go shopping with you, if you don't

mind. Thank you,

Sincerely,

Maggie

Elisa sighed, and looked over the second sheet, the shopping list. Quite a list, too; Maggie and her helpers must have worked on it for a while. There were some hardware items like wood and machine screws in various sizes, drill bits, super-glue, carpenter's glue, D-cell batteries, and light bulbs. The groceries included basic ingredients like flour, powdered milk, margarine, bouillon cubes, various spices (probably to flavor those rat stews), and tins of smoked oysters (?). Toiletries included antibacterial soap and anti-lice shampoos, toilet paper, Tylenol (she seemed to remember Derek saying that he and the other mutates couldn't tolerate plain aspirin anymore; one of the many drawbacks to their mutations), bandages, hydrogen peroxide, boxes of condoms and home pregnancy testing kits. Elisa blinked and looked twice at the last two items, but decided that life went on even for the homeless, and if they were making whoopee down in the tunnels they should be prepared for all eventualities. Still, she could imagine the shy mutate blushing beneath her fur as she wrote those items down.

"Okay, I can help you out," she said as she turned back to Dana. "Just let me get—hey!" she said indignantly, and with more than a little alarm, because while she'd been reading the list Dana had decided to go explore her balcony. Like an idiot, Elisa spent a precious second or two just shouting at her before remembering that Dana couldn't hear her, and by the time she'd gone to grab her Dana had already opened the door and had one hand on the tarp covering Goliath.

Elisa grabbed Dana's arm to pull her back inside, but Dana kept a tight grip on the tarp, so it came off to reveal Goliath as she was dragged in. Elisa yelped and rushed to put the tarp back in place, but it was too late; Dana had seen who it was. Grinning, Dana reached for the pad of paper and pen Elisa had left out for her, and wrote down simply, _Lover?_ Elisa's bright blush was answer enough. Dana grinned even wider, then wrote down, _Good! Bring_ _him down with us tonight_. At Elisa's questioning look, she wrote down, _Need you & him to show Claw is OK to have lover who is different_.

Elisa blinked again. "You and Claw…?" Dana just grinned, and Elisa decided that she didn't really need the details just then. Instead, she made it clear that if Dana was willing to wait a little while for Elisa to shower and dress, they would go shopping that afternoon.

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Once Elisa had convinced Dana that she would NOT be permitted to drive the Fairlane, the shopping went relatively painlessly. The money Dana had brought with her didn't even come close to covering the total cost, but Elisa firmly told Dana that paying back what she'd spent on them was not necessary this time, as she stuffed the receipts deep in her pockets. Their leader Derek was family, and family helped out family, so she'd split the difference with her and Derek's parents, who had said before that they wanted to help out.

They returned to her apartment about an hour before sunset, and Elisa whipped up a light meal for them both, while Dana played with Cagney. Normally shy around strangers, Cagney took a near-instant liking to Dana and she to him. She especially liked to cuddle him close, leaning her cheek against his body, and feeling the soft vibration of his purrs. Cagney seemed to somehow understand her disability, and cranked up his rumbling purr so loud Elisa thought she could almost see his fur vibrating.

When sunset came, Elisa made it very clear to Dana that she was to wait in the bedroom for her and Goliath to join her, and they'd go to the Labyrinth afterwards. Dana was disappointed that she wouldn't get to see Goliath wake up, but went into the bedroom a few minutes before sunset, so Elisa could have a few minutes alone with her Big Guy.

At sunset, Elisa pulled off the tarpaulin as soon as she heard the first cracklings of stone converting to flesh, and he awoke a split-second after she had it off. Mindful of his surroundings, Goliath kept his characteristic roar down to a low rumble and confined his usual vigorous, shard-flinging stretch to simply standing up and flexing his biceps, but it still made for an impressive sight. "Hey there, Big Guy," Elisa said in greeting.

"Good evening, beloved," Goliath said happily as he gave himself one vigorous shake from head to tail, to rid himself of the shards of stone skin that still clung here and there. Once that was finished, he reached for her.

Elisa happily walked into his warm embrace, hugging him as well, but when he tipped her face up for a kiss she held up a cautionary finger and said the three words that nearly every male dreads to hear after a long day: "We have company."

"Company!" Goliath was both dismayed and alarmed, as he looked quickly around him. The last time Elisa had uninvited 'company,' they'd arrived carrying Quarryhammers. Elisa hurriedly reassured him that their visitor was friendly, a resident of the Labyrinth. When she said the name Dana, Goliath nodded and said, "I remember; the one who talks with her hands."

"Right. Anyway, she came up here today with a shopping list, for some things the Labyrinth needs. We'll be delivering the stuff we bought to the East docks entrance; can you meet us there?"

Goliath was disappointed, almost pouting (which looked ridiculous on a seven-foot-tall gargoyle). "I had hoped we would have the night to ourselves."

"Me, too," Elisa admitted. "But Dana really wants us both to come down for a while, to talk to Claw especially." She coughed and admitted, "She figured us out as soon as she saw under the tarp, and, well, the good news is she's happy for us. But she expects us to, well, encourage Claw to get together with her."

Goliath actually grinned at that. "So someone has set her talons for Claw! And she wants us to be elders for her. I must say, I never thought I'd see the night when I'd be one."

Elisa eyed him curiously. "An elder? What, you never thought you'd live to old age?"

"No, though a warrior never counts on surviving so long. To be an elder for a courting couple; it's a gargoyle custom. If a young male, or female, desires another for a mate but has problems persuading her chosen one to choose her in return, she often seeks the advice of happily mated elders on persuading the male to court her for a mate. In some cases, the elders would persuade her to choose another male that would be better suited for her in years to come."

"Gargoyle matchmakers, eh?" Elisa smiled wryly. "Guess some things are universal."

"I must admit, I never thought that we would be called on in that capacity," as he smiled wryly back. "But if she believes we set a good example for them as a 'mixed couple,' then we should go and talk to him. No one should be alone all their nights," as they walked inside.

Elisa was still trying to digest the surprising information that Goliath not only understood matchmaking but was looking forward to it, when they met Dana coming out of the bedroom. She was happy to see Goliath, and asked him on paper if he'd had a good day's sleep. Goliath chuckled and wrote back that he'd slept very well, and would be coming with them to talk to Claw tonight. "And I suppose we should talk to your brother about the clones as well," he added to Elisa. "You were right, in that we can't simply ignore their existence." Dana frowned a little as he said that, evidently trying to read his lips but not succeeding too well because of his differently shaped mouth. Goliath noticed, and quickly wrote down what he'd said to Elisa for her. Then, speaking slowly and clearly to make it easier for her, he said, "I would like to learn your hand talk sometime, but it would involve several changes, for those signs that require extra fingers," as he held up his four-fingered hand to illustrate his point. Dana smiled wryly in acknowledgement.

Half an hour later, Elisa parked her car in a secluded area on the docks, and moments later Goliath landed quietly alongside. He frowned at their surroundings, saying, "This is a high-crime-rate area; not a good place to leave your car unattended."

"Dana said Derek would send somebody to guard this entrance tonight, and to keep an eye out for the Fairlane and make sure it's not broken into or hauled off to a chop shop," Elisa said as she started pulling grocery sacks out of the back. Goliath chivalrously took several of the sacks, and Dana and Elisa split the rest between them, and they headed for the entrance to the Labyrinth.

Elisa spotted the tip of a wing peeking out of a concealing shadow just inside the entrance, and called out, "We're here! Derek, that you?"

"Elisa friend-mother!" came the happy reply, as instead of her brother, Delilah stepped proudly out. She was still wearing the red leather jacket that was similar to Elisa's (except for the wing-holes in the back), but she'd evidently traded in her usual tight shirt and shorts for a somewhat baggier outfit, and her new T-shirt sported the logo of the Hard Rock Cafe. "Talon said I can stand watch here, make sure no bad men hurt your car! I am--" She stopped cold, her voice cutting off like someone had thrown a switch, as soon as he saw Goliath.

For his part, Goliath also stopped to stare; this clone in particular was hard for him to deal with. Delilah was a mixture of Elisa's and Demona's genes, made to order by his own clone Thailog. She combined the best elements of both in her body and features, and he was ashamed to admit to himself that the end result was absolutely, completely, howl-at-the-moon-and-fly-barrel-rolls gorgeous. But only Elisa held his heart, and this clone was NOT Elisa. She was also NOT Demona, and would likely end up as different from either of them as Thailog had differed from him, as he told himself very firmly. He also told himself that she at least deserved the courtesy he'd give any strange female gargoyle, swallowed hard and said formally, "Greetings, Delilah. Clear skies to you tonight."

Delilah instantly burst into tears. She whirled and ran back into the Labyrinth, her sobs trailing in the air behind her. Elisa, Dana and Goliath all looked at each other in consternation, before Dana handed her sacks to Goliath and took off after her. So did Elisa (leaving Goliath looking very silly, with plastic sacks hanging from every talon and the tip of his tail), calling Delilah's name as she ran into the shadows.

Elisa and Dana caught up with Delilah less than a hundred feet down the tunnel; she was sitting curled up in a corner, sobbing bitterly into her fisted hands. They both crouched beside her, but while Elisa just looked at her helplessly, Dana reached in and gathered her into her embrace. She held Delilah in her arms and rocked back and forth with her, and began vocalizing a half-crooning, half-groaning "Ooowwoooonnnn…. Ooowwoooonnnn…" It didn't sound very soothing to Elisa's ears, but Delilah seemed to appreciate the effort Dana was making, and gradually her sobs quieted.

When Delilah's wild sobs had become quiet tears and whimpers, Elisa asked her gently, "Delilah, dear… What's wrong? Goliath didn't scare you, did he?"

"N-not scared," Delilah choked out. "B-but he looks like Master!" Of course he did, Elisa realized; her 'master', Thailog, had been Goliath's clone. But Delilah continued, "Miss him so much! Miss him holding me, miss him on me, miss him inside me…"

It didn't take a genius to figure out what she was referring to. Elisa repressed a shudder, and reminded herself that Delilah had been created by Thailog to be his mate, so it naturally followed that he'd used his creation as soon as she was ready. And willing, since she'd been programmed while still in the cloning vat to love him unconditionally. Programmed to love a psychopath, poor kid!

Elisa searched for the right words to say. "Delilah… I know what it's like to miss someone. When I was new on the police force, my very first partner died right in front of my eyes, shot by a criminal." Poor Dan Caglione, dead two days before his fortieth birthday. Elisa had laid her birthday gift for him on his coffin before it was lowered into the ground; a box of those gawdawful cigars he had liked so much, even though she'd always warned him that they'd be the death of him someday… It had taken Elisa a long time to stop blaming herself for his death, and that was one of the reasons why she had resisted taking on Matt Bluestone as a partner for so long. "It may seem now like you'll be alone forever and always sad, but time really does heal nearly all wounds. You'll always miss him, but someday, you'll find somebody to love again." And please God, let it not be another criminal psychopath…

Delilah eyed her in evident disbelief, but gradually dried her tears and stood up. "I go back to guard your car," she announced as she determinedly threw her shoulders back, and momentarily flared her wings. "I keep it safe for you all night, you'll see!"

"Attagirl!" Elisa applauded her attitude as they went back to the entrance, where Goliath was still waiting patiently with their bags.

When they returned, Goliath looked both curiously and uncomfortably at Delilah, but she did her best to ignore him as she went past and took up her post at the entrance. Elisa whispered quietly that she'd explain later, but right now they should get moving, as people were waiting for their purchases.

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In his cell deep in the heart of the Labyrinth, Fang brooded on the unfairness of Life. All his life, people had been trying to keep him pinned down, denying him any fun. His parents, his teachers, his boss at the bus station, his ex-wife, his old parole officer… None of them really cared about what he wanted, the hypocrites. Always "Do this! Don't do that!" Rules, rules, rules.

When Doc Sevarius had grabbed him and given him the wings and fangs and stuff, Fang had been scared shitless at first. But once he'd had a chance to get out and use those wings, he'd been thrilled. With wings, he could rise above it all, throw the rules out the window and live life like a man! After the doc had supposedly died, Fang had flown off on his own for a day and a half, wanting to use his new powers to take over his old neighborhood. He'd been cured of that ambition in a hurry, though, when a shotgun blast from old Hansen had nearly taken his head off, and while he'd been dodging that McGurty had shot a hole in his wing. He'd had to slap duct tape over the hole before he could fly, cursing at the pain all the way, back to Xanatos and the others. Then he'd had to put up with lectures from both Xanatos and Talon before they would leave him alone; more piss-ant rules.

After the mutates had broken with Xanatos and taken up residence in the Labyrinth, Fang had taken a look around at the bums and hookers who shared the Labyrinth with them and figured that this was a bunch he could handle. Most of them had been beaten enough by society already that they almost expected somebody to do it again. He'd started showing them all who was boss immediately, and he'd even had Claw mostly whipped into shape after a few days, but Talon kept making trouble, keeping him down even though he said he wasn't trying to be the boss. Finally, he'd found a way to take Talon out of the action, but Maggie had brought those damn gargoyles in, and he'd ended up in a prison cell. He'd just wanted to run things the way they were supposed to be run… Life just wasn't fair.

Five weeks ago, his old cell neighbor Demona had gotten herself sprung by her boyfriend, and they'd sprung Fang as well because they thought he could be useful. Less than a night later, he'd ended up back here again, in a new cell but with the same old routine, except now he sometimes saw one of those stupid clones going by hunting rats. Fang figured now that his mistake had been in going along with Demona and Thailog in taking out Talon and the other gargoyles, instead of just beating it for out of town the moment their backs had been turned. Those damn do-gooder gargoyles, Talon and Maggie had made the Labyrinth a dead end for him, and at the first opportunity he was going to blow this joint and head for easier territory. New Jersey, maybe. And he was pretty sure an opportunity was coming up soon…

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The first Labyrinth dweller Goliath and the ladies met once they'd gone deeper into the tunnel system was Claw. He was pretending to tighten a pipe fitting on one of the water pipes, but Elisa saw right through it, as did Dana, and he immediately dropped both the pretense and the pipe wrench when she dropped her bags and charged right at him. Elisa thought for a second that Dana was going to try to knock him over, but she leaped and twisted at the last moment, and landed sideways in his outstretched arms. It strongly reminded both Elisa and Goliath of the way Elisa had jumped into Goliath's arms only three weeks ago, and they both smiled in fond remembrance as Dana reached up to grab Claw's head and planted a firm kiss on the end of his muzzle.

Claw looked just as flustered as Goliath had felt that dawn, when he realized that they had an audience. "Oh, don't mind us!" Elisa said hastily. "We're just passing through on our way to the main kitchen," as she picked up the bags Dana had dropped. But Dana scrambled out of Claw's arms and came back for the bags, visually insisting that she had to do her share. Elisa knew how important pride was, when a person had little else to call his/her own, so she handed the bags back over, while Claw scrambled to put his tools away and walk back with them.

Instead of merely carrying the plastic bag handles in her hands, Dana strung them up her arms past her elbows, to free her hands for sign language. She and Claw were nearly walking sideways down the hall as they gestured back and forth to each other, and Elisa almost snickered aloud when the thought passed through her head that, at least with Dana, Claw was turning out to be quite the chatterbox. She covertly studied them, and concluded that they made no more an odd couple than she and Goliath did, and probably less of an odd couple when all the facts were in. In fact, her snap judgement was that Dana was probably the best thing to happen to Claw in years; she'd reopened the world for him, by showing him how to communicate with people in more than just haphazard pantomime.

The last time she'd seen Claw before she and Goliath left on their quest, he had seemed to be a quietly miserable soul, resigned to his fate but not at all happy with it. Not just as a cop but as a caring cat owner, Elisa had judged him so in part because his fur had always looked dull despite its vivid stripes, in comparison to Derek's gleaming black pelt. And there had been a downward cast to his ears and a despairing look in his eyes when he thought no one was looking, or when he was particularly frustrated over being unable to speak. She'd met him a few times since returning from the quest, when visiting Derek and Maggie or taking her occasional turn in guarding Demona (and hadn't those been interesting sessions! It was amazing how many languages and dialects Demona could curse in.) She'd idly noticed that he progressively seemed to be less unhappy as the months went by, but hadn't known the reason then.

Now, with a thick glossy pelt, his ears perked up and the tips of his fangs showing occasionally in tigerish grins, Claw seemed downright happy, enjoying life. But he'd been definitely flustered by that kiss, and not all because he'd had an audience for it; maybe he just couldn't quite understand how a normal (well, normal except for being stone-deaf) woman could possibly be interested in him romantically. Elisa could sympathize; she'd done a lot of soul-searching and self-doubting for several months, until that night she'd almost drowned while fighting the Hunters. After that, she'd thrown all her doubts into the wind when she'd jumped into Goliath's arms.

After a few minutes of (literally) animated conversation, Dana signed something that made Claw stop dead in his tracks, to whirl and stare open-mouthed at Goliath and Elisa. "I believe she just told him about our relationship," Goliath said amusedly in her ear.

"I think you're right," Elisa said with both a blush and a smile. "Um… Do you want to talk to him first?"

"As the saying goes, Elisa," Goliath said as he set his bags down, "actions speak louder than words." And with that, he swept her off her feet and embraced her with arms and wings in a deep, thorough kiss.

When he finally let her back down, Elisa felt just a teensy bit wobbly, and in need of a quick, cold shower. For a guy who'd had his first kiss only three weeks ago, Goliath was a fast learner! Looking around, they noticed that Claw and Dana had walked further down the tunnel to give them some privacy. Joking to cover her embarrassment, she said, "I didn't know you were so into PDA's, Big Guy!"

"PDA's?" Goliath frowned puzzledly. "I thought we were kissing."

"Public Displays of Affection," Elisa translated. "Somehow, I thought you'd be more the stoic type, at least when others are around."

Goliath smiled lopsidedly. "Elisa, I grew up with rookery brothers and sisters who all but flew their mating flights right over the battlements. Compared to them, I am the stoic type." Before Elisa could think of a response to that, he gestured down the tunnel and said, "Shall we rejoin the others?" He could see he'd have to have a talk with her about such "PDA's"; this was one cultural difference that might possibly cause a real problem later on, especially when the breeding season drew near and Angela chose her mate. But now was not the time for it; perhaps later tonight, after they'd completed their errands here.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was shift change for the guard outside Fang's cell. Robert came around the corner to find Billy sitting there chewing his perpetual toothpick, with the Labyrinth's only authorized weapon, a tranquilizer gun, lying across his lap. A few months ago, while Demona had been jailed down here too, Elisa had noticed how Talon, Maggie and Claw were wearing themselves out with guarding the cells in three-person rotation for day after day after day while still trying to maintain the affairs of the Labyrinth. With the "No weapons" rule, the mutates had felt that it was too dangerous for one of the normal Labyrinth residents to stand guard over both Fang and Demona, even when she was in human form; if one of them had broken out, an unarmed human would probably end up as hamburger. Elisa had agreed, but suggested a sole compromise to the rule they'd set months ago. With a tranquilizer gun handy, even if a prisoner took his meal-bringer hostage, the guard could shoot both prisoner and hostage if need be and not have to worry about any more ill effects than a long enforced nap and a hangover-like headache afterwards.

Once the tranquilizer gun had been brought down, Talon had selected a half-dozen of his most stable people as fellow guards, and they'd begun standing watches with the mutates. (Privately, Talon hoped no one would ever learn that they'd had human guards carrying the tranquilizer gun for over a week before Elisa had finally found and brought down the right size darts for it.) As Robert came up and relieved Billy, he looked curiously into the cell and said, "What's up with him tonight?"

Billy just shrugged and said, "Dunno. He just started complaining about a bellyache half an hour ago or so." He gestured in to where Claw was curled up on his bed, visibly shivering, instead of razzing them like he usually did every shift change. "Figured at first it was the eggs from this morning, y'know? Then a few minutes ago he started doing the DT's there. Maybe he's got some kind of flu bug."

"Yeah, Maggie's been feeling poorly lately too. Hope it ain't catching." They had no doctor in the Labyrinth, just Maggie and a few other people who'd had training in first aid in their former lives. Now that Derek was running things they kept the place a little more cleaned up than before, and kept most of the food they collected in cold storage, but disease and food poisoning were ever-present threats.

"Yeah. Hey, is Jimmy back from scrounging yet? He said he might have a line on some kid-sized sneakers, and--"

Fang abruptly bolted off his bed, startling them both, but instead of rushing the bars he ran the other way, and ended up in a corner with his back to them, making retching sounds. The two guards exchanged looks of concern, that changed to looks of outright alarm when Fang moaned, "Sweet Jesus, it's all bloody…" He sagged bonelessly against the wall, still facing away from them and staring at something they couldn't quite see on the floor, his carelessly half-extended wing blocking it from their sight. Even more faintly, they heard him moan again, "Blood, Christ, I'm in trouble… God, don't let me die like this…"

Robert grabbed the keys and opened the cell door, and stepped cautiously towards the corner where Fang was half-sitting, half-sprawled. "Hey, pal, let's get you back on the bed, and then we'll call Maggie in here, okay?"

"Okay," Fang said as he whipped around with a feral grin, and Robert realized too late that he'd left the cell door open. He didn't even have time to shout before Fang charged, hitting him dead-center like a linebacker taking out the quarterback and continuing his charge out through the open door. Billy had time for a shout of alarm as he lifted his tranquilizer gun, but before he could get a shot off Fang was on him like fleas on a dog.

Less than thirty seconds later, Fang was gleefully pointing the rifle and taking aim dead center at Billy's upturned butt as he said, "Say good night, Gracie!" A hiss of compressed air later, Billy had been tagged with a dart that would ensure his period of unconsciousness lasted considerably more than a few minutes. Robert got the same treatment, before Fang snapped the rifle in half and went whistling on his way. If he remembered right, this tunnel led away from the main halls and out to the docks, and from there he could kiss the whole caboodle goodbye and head for a new start somewhere else. Yep, things were looking up at last.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Hey, Derek!" Elisa called out as soon as she saw her brother's head and wings standing out above the small knot of people gathered at one end of the large room the Labyrinth people had designated as an assembly hall. He spared her a glance and a brief wave of greeting before returning to the conversation he was in; he seemed to be mediating a dispute between two other residents. Elisa nodded understanding before heading off to the communal kitchen and dining hall they'd set up in the heart of the Labyrinth, using what had been left behind in Cyberbiotic's old employee cafeteria.

Ruth, one of the homeless people who prided herself on her cooking skills and had largely taken over the kitchen as a result, thanked them profusely for the groceries as they were set on the old scarred countertop. "These will help out a lot! Oh, good, you got the oysters too!" She leaned forward as she whispered conspiratorially, "You can't say anything about this to Maggie, because it's a surprise for her; Derek and I snuck them onto the list after Maggie wrote it up. We found a tin of oysters last week, and she just gulped them all down like they were fancy chocolates; I never knew anyone could like them so much! So we're going to save these for her birthday next month." They all smiled and nodded, agreeing to keep the oysters a secret. By the time Maggie came into the kitchen a few minutes later, the tins had been craftily hidden away as Ruth said brightly to the female mutate, "So, are you feeling better now?"

"A little bit," Maggie said with a wan smile. "Whatever bug this is, I hope it goes away soon."

"Well, now that we have the bouillon cubes, I can whip up some of my special pigeon soup for you; it's far and away better than chicken soup! Come on back in half an hour, dear, and I'll have it hot and ready for you," as Ruth kindly but firmly shooed them all out of the kitchen.

Derek met them coming out, having settled the dispute amicably, and reminded Claw that two other people were waiting for him; he'd agreed earlier to help out two more Labyrinth residents in bringing down a refrigerator that had been found on the streets that afternoon. Claw nodded agreement and walked off as Derek said to the others, "If we can get this one running, we'll have a total of three working refrigerators down here, and we'll be able to crank one all the way down and make it a freezer. With luck, we'll be able to cut the cases of food poisoning down here by half or better. Speaking of which, Maggie, how are you feeling now?" as he gave her a hug.

"A little better," Maggie told him with the same wan smile.

"If you're not really feeling up to it later, we can play cards some other night; I know Dana and Claw would understand. Right, Dana?" as he looked at her, signing a few phrases at her.

Dana nodded, then smiled impishly as she signed something back. Maggie's ears went flat against her skull in evident embarrassment, while Derek snorted with amusement. Elisa and Goliath looked curiously at them as she asked, "What did she say?"

"She just said that she wouldn't mind missing a game of Crazy Eight's, because she'd rather get Claw to play strip poker with her," Derek said with a snicker. "I tell you, Elisa, never underestimate this one!"

"Strip poker?" Goliath said to Elisa with an interesting smile. "When are we going to play that?"

That brought both Derek and Maggie up short, to stare at them both. "Did he just say… Sis, are you two…"

Elisa's blush was answer enough. Goliath laid a hand on her shoulder as he said pointedly to the others, "If you're asking whether we've become lovers, as you would term it, the answer is yes. And if you have a problem with that, say it now or say it never." He didn't growl, and his eyes didn't glow, but he seemed to grow a few inches taller as his tail tensed and coiled in anticipation of trouble.

Dana immediately jumped in with her hands flashing through the air, signing so fast they were almost a blur. "Slow down, Dana, I can't read you that fast!" Derek complained, secretly glad of a reason to avoid confronting Goliath for just a few seconds more.

Dana slowed down, but her signs became even more emphatic, hands high in the air in the deaf way of 'shouting'. Maggie said slowly, "She's right, Derek; it'd be hypocritical if you did object, considering the way you've been encouraging Claw and Dana to get together."

Derek sighed loudly and scrubbed his face with his hands. "There's a little more of a difference here… But what the hell, Sis, it's your life. We all have to make our own choices, right?" It was a bittersweet reminder of their conversation the night of their confrontation after he'd gone to work for Xanatos, and Elisa knew that Derek thought she was making a mistake, but she also knew he'd say no more about it.

They walked along for a few moments in an uncomfortable silence, before Maggie decided to change the subject by saying brightly, "Why don't we go to the Concert Hall? I don't think we've showed you that place yet!"

"Concert Hall?" Elisa asked curiously. "You have musicians down here?"

"Actually, we do have a couple street musicians here, but what Maggie's referring to is this one chamber down here that somehow has some sort of audio hookup with the Metropolitan Opera House. If you stand in one corner of the room you can actually hear what's being performed up there," as Derek directed them down another corridor. "The reception's not great, but you can make out what's being said pretty well. I've got some people who think it's due to a hidden speaker being set to the House's wireless microphone's frequencies, and a couple who say we're actually haunted by the spirits of some old stagehands, and Big Bennie's idea is even crazier than that. But either way, it's a real kick to listen to it some nights."

"Um, what about…" as Elisa gestured discreetly to Dana.

She wasn't quite discreet enough, though, and Dana gave her a somewhat exasperated look. She was suddenly reminded of a blind man she'd met once, an author who'd come to the station to report that his house had been broken into while he was gone. She'd been a rookie cop back then, nervous about how to do her job while allowing the man his dignity. She'd tried to pick her way through the minefield of questions she had to ask while being discreet about his handicap, when he'd suddenly slammed his hands down on the desk and said, "To paraphrase an old movie, miss, I don't need no stinking PC!" (_Political Correctness—ye author_) "I'm blind, and we both know it, but I've learned to deal with it, and so can you. Ask your questions, and when I don't know the answer I'll be honest about it, okay?" Dana's look said just as plainly as that author had, _I can deal with it_!

"If it's interesting, I can sign most of it to her," Derek said nonchalantly. "Claw does it all the time, especially on comedy nights." As if to prove that she was looking forward to it, Dana strode a few steps ahead of everyone, leading the way to the faraway chamber. Thus, when they went around the next corner, she was the first one to run into Fang.

The sudden encounter took everyone by surprise, including Fang, but he was the first one to recover and he grabbed Dana before any of them could react. "You ain't putting me back in that cell!" he snarled as he held her in front of her as a human shield.

Dana screamed shrilly, long and loud, while kicking and jerking about, trying to free herself. Maggie and Derek flared their wings and charged up, electrical energy crackling around their hands, while Goliath dropped to all fours between them and prepared to charge, knowing that he actually was faster to pounce from four legs than two. Elisa whipped her gun out of its holster and stood behind Goliath, aiming over him and right at Fang's head as she shouted, "Let her go, Fang!"

"I don't think so!" Fang snarled back as he got a firm grip on Dana's throat. "All of you back off, or I'll rip her throat out here and now!"

It was a classic standoff, and these things rarely ended well. "If you do, it'll be murder!" Derek snarled out, poised and ready to fire a blast of electrical power strong enough to knock Fang into next Easter, if only Dana wasn't in the way. "And I swear we'll never let you never leave here alive!"

"I've been dying already, cooped up in that goddamn cell; at least this way I can go out fighting! But I won't kill her, if you _all-back-off_!" and he emphasized his last three words by shaking Dana in his grip like a terrier shakes a rat. Gasping for air, Dana went limp in his grasp, her eyes rolling in mortal fear.

Maggie reluctantly lowered her hands and dissipated the charge, and Derek even more reluctantly followed suit. Goliath still poised ready to pounce, but Elisa slowly lowered her gun and nudged for him to move back; Fang was holding all the cards.

"Look, I don't want any trouble," Fang snarled, keeping a tight grip on Dana's throat with one clawed hand while the other gestured down the tunnel he had been following. "I just wanna get out of this piss-ant joint! So me and the deaf bitch here are going to take a nice walk, and I'll let her go once we get to the surface. Just leave us alone, and no one will get--"

_**ROOAARRRRRR!**_

The roar nearly deafened them all, and surprised everyone enough to freeze for just an instant. That instant was just long enough for a flash of orange and black to streak in from a side tunnel, and come down on Fang and Dana like lightning. It was Claw, but a Claw no one had ever seen before; not a timid mutate anymore, but the wrath of God incarnate in fur.

Before anyone could move again, Dana was sprawled on the floor a few feet away from a snarling mass of fur and wings that resolved into Fang and Claw, rolling on the floor and fighting tooth and nail (literally, with fangs and claws), as they were too close to each other to use their electrical blasts. Derek swore as he moved in to help, but Goliath surprisingly grabbed his hand and said, "Not yet. Let Claw handle this, if he can."

And he did. Fang was using every dirty trick he'd ever learned as he fought, from kneeing Claw in the groin to trying to gouge his eyes out, but every move was either countered or ignored as Claw systematically pounded the stuffing out of him. In short order Fang was sprawled unconscious and bleeding on the floor, and Claw reared back and snarled once more as he lifted one hand high, preparing to slash through his opponent's throat.

Lightning-fast, Goliath intercepted that paw before it could descend. "Enough, Claw, you've beaten him! You've won!" he said sharply. "You've won, it's over!" he repeated, as Claw looked at him through slitted eyes, still growling. It seemed Goliath was the only one who wasn't surprised that Claw could growl, roar and snarl, when he'd never made so much as a peep before now.

Dana came running up to the still growling Claw, repeating some sign with her hands as she fearlessly shoved Goliath to one side. (Derek told Elisa later, she was signing, _My hero! My hero!_) Claw grabbed her and hugged her tightly, unmindful of his bloody fur and ragged ear, and his growl became a different sort of rumble, almost a rough purring. Dana grinned as she stroked the bloody fur on one cheek, then grabbed his muzzle and kissed him hard.

Goliath smiled at the two of them, then walked back to the still staring Elisa, Maggie and Derek. "He's not only saved her life, but proven he's fit to protect her, both to himself and to her," he informed them with an almost smug grin; finally, he'd found a courting custom even more 'barbaric' than his own people's customs, though it was one he could still relate to. "You should be prepared to hold a mating ceremony soon."

"Mating ceremony?" Derek blinked, and finally came out of the daze he'd been in. "Geez, I suppose we'd better think of something for them. Honey, did you know that Claw could roar?"

"Uh-uh," Maggie slowly shook her head, her eyes still wide. "I… I guess he never wanted to before?"

Elisa pointed out, "He was the first one mutated, right? It must have completely changed his vocal cords to what a tiger would have, not just muted them like we all assumed. Since he couldn't talk any more, he probably chose to keep completely silent rather than sound like a wild animal, as well as sort-of resemble one."

"I suppose you're right. Umm, Claw, where are…? Never mind," Derek said wryly as Claw swept Dana off her feet and carried her out of the tunnel, down a side passage. Dana gleefully waved to them over his shoulder as he strode out of sight. "Well, so much for Mr. Milquetoast," Derek shook his head as he went to examine the still unconscious Fang. He whistled as he looked him over, and said, "Fang's lucky to be alive! This arm's got to be broken, we'll need stitches for these slashes, and I think he's got a few teeth knocked out to boot. Sis, remind me to never even look twice in Dana's direction while Claw's around from now on."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure you don't," Maggie said dryly as she dragged a beat-up old coffee table out of a nearby chamber, to use as an improvised stretcher.

They'd just about reached the room that Derek had designated as their infirmary when, from a few corridors away, another roar came echoing out. Claw's room was in that direction, and all four of them just looked at each other, blushed simultaneously, and went on without saying a word.

The bandages and other medical supplies Elisa had bought that afternoon were put to use sooner than anyone could have expected, putting Fang back together again. "I hope he doesn't have any serious internal injuries," Maggie worried aloud as she set the last bandage in place, Fang having remained unconscious through it all. "I may know first aid from my old Girl Scout years, but I'm certainly not a doctor!"

"Let's just see how he goes for the next day or so. If he starts getting worse instead of better, then we'll start worrying about finding a doctor for him," Derek said. "In the meantime, what say we head back to our quarters?"

Rather than haul Fang back to his cell when they were finished, Derek had him simply left there in the makeshift infirmary; there didn't seem to be much likelihood of Fang running anywhere at the moment, not with one arm and both wings splinted, and bandages all over his head, arms, torso and one leg clear to the knee. (And with large sections of his fur shaved off so they could cleanly stitch the worst slashes closed; he looked so thoroughly bedraggled Elisa almost felt sorry for him.)

Once they'd come to Maggie and Derek's private rooms, Maggie excused herself for a few minutes and went into the bathroom, leaving Talon to talk with Goliath and Elisa. Derek showed them a leaflet one of his people had brought back from a scrounging foray, and Elisa's stomach tightened when she saw what was on the cover; a viciously exaggerated drawing of Goliath. It was a Quarryman leaflet, and while Derek's voice was casual his eyes were worried as he asked, "Don't suppose you've found out any more about these bozos?"

Elisa shook her head angrily. "Their leader, Jon Castaway, doesn't seem to have existed on anything but paper until just a few days before the Quarrymen first showed up and tried to kill us. If we could get his fingerprints and run them through the database at work, maybe we could find out who he really is and how the hell he managed to come up with so much weaponry so fast. Problem is, I can't get a warrant for his arrest without revealing just how we first encountered them, and the uproar that would result just doesn't bear thinking about." She sighed in frustration as she flopped back against Goliath, and he put a comforting arm around her.

"Organized crime is my bet," Derek said sagely. "Maybe Tony Dracon hired him; that's one crook who's bound to have a serious mad on about gargoyles, from all the times he's been thwarted by them."

Goliath mused that it was certainly possible, but Elisa just shook her head again. "But that doesn't explain the Quarryhammers; they're geared specifically to be used against sleeping gargoyles--"

"Though quite effective when we're awake, as well," Goliath growled as he remembered the incredible pain from being hit by them. "But I see your point; none of us are in the habit of letting our foes know of our greatest weakness. Even in this age of wonders, such a quantity of weapons would have to have been designed and made even before the general public became aware of our existence. If Dracon is indeed behind these Quarrymen, how did he find out about our stone sleep?"

"And if it isn't Dracon, who can it be?"

Since that conversation was doing nothing but raising blood pressures all around, they changed the subject to the gargoyle clones. Derek was proud to say that most of the clones were learning the alphabet fairly well, while Delilah had mastered it already and was learning to read, and their grammar was slowly improving as well. He admitted, though, that there were occasional difficulties in dealing with them, like the times when they pestered him for trips up the surface, to stretch their wings, and he had to restrict them to two at a time with a mutate as an escort. Even though they were still prone to call him 'master' sometimes, once they were in the air they liked to wander off on their own and explore the city, and he had a hard time keeping them in line and out of sight. "They just can't quite understand that not everybody in the city is like the people down here, who at least tolerate them, and I'm scared to death that one of these nights Malibu or Brentwood will just land next to a Quarryman and ask him if he wants to play."

"That would not be wise," Goliath admitted dryly. "So, you're asking me if my clan can provide… 'babysitters' for when their gargoyle nature demands they go gliding?"

"Well, yeah," Derek admitted as he scratched his ear. "But I was going to suggest that maybe you could have some of your folks stop by the dock entrance every night before they go on patrol, and take one of the clones with them. Patrolling would let them get their gliding in, while giving their protective urges a workout too."

Goliath considered it. "Right now, I believe they'd be more hindrance than help on patrol. But perhaps once they've matured a bit more… Do you have them patrolling the tunnels already?"

"Yeah, looking after some of the lesser-used tunnels on the East Side. It's prime rat territory, anyway. We haven't had any trouble from that direction in several--" He cut himself off and turned his head sharply, as did they, when they heard a crash coming from the bathroom. "Maggie!" he called out.

"I-I'm okay," her voice came echoing down the corridor. "I…slipped." Her voice sounded strange, though, and after a few seconds Derek excused himself and went down the corridor after her.

Goliath and Elisa looked uncertainly at each other for a few moments, before Elisa shrugged and said, "So, Big Guy, any plans for the rest of the night, once we're done here?"

Goliath brightened immediately, and said, "Actually, I have an idea or two." He glanced towards the bathroom, then said slyly, "And wouldn't you say we're done here now?"

Elisa snorted in amusement; whether human or gargoyle, it was amazing how the typical male's priorities shifted once he had an active sex life. But she readily agreed, "Just let me say goodbye to them, and we can--" Then her voice was cut off, by a loud thump coming from the bathroom.

Elisa and Goliath stared at each other for a moment, frowning in consternation; then they got up from the couch and walked down the hall to the bathroom. Elisa knocked on the door and called out, "Derek, Maggie, you all right in there?"

The only reply they got back was Derek saying "Uhhhh…" Elisa frowned worriedly and opened the door.

Inside, she saw Maggie sitting on the toilet seat, saying nothing and staring at nothing, with a little stick held loosely in one hand. Derek sat on the floor opposite her, saying nothing but staring at the little stick. Elisa frowned and said, "What's the matter with--" Then the significance of that stick hit her; it was from one of the kits she'd brought down only an hour ago. "You…"

Derek spoke very softly into the sudden silence. "Maggie's pregnant."

TO BE CONTINUED…


	2. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

**LIFE GOES ON**

**_Revelations of the Labyrinth, Part II (Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?)_**

By Kimberly T.

(Author's Note: I'm not going to get into any "pro-life/pro-choice" arguments, okay? I just deduced from watching various episodes that, whatever's Elisa's opinion on the subject may be, gargoyles in general would definitely be "pro-life", if for no other reason than that they themselves can breed only once every couple decades. --KYT)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You're pregnant?" Goliath's face split in a wide grin as he looked at Maggie and Derek, who were still sitting dazed in the bathroom, staring at the test stick. "That's wonderful news!"

Maggie finally found her voice, but it was a soft and uncertain voice, with overtones of fear. "Is it?"

Goliath frowned puzzledly. "Of course! New life is always a cause for rejoicing."

"Not always, Big Guy," Elisa said worriedly. "But… Maggie, didn't you tell me once you'd always dreamed of having a family?"

"Yes…" Then Maggie started laughing, and the laughter had a definite hysterical edge to it. "Oh, yes! A good husband, a home of my own, and a little boy and girl to raise, that's what I've always wanted! But what have I got? FUR AND WINGS! And a hole in the ground to live in, and a boyfriend with fur and wings as well, who just got me pregnant with WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO HAVE?" she screamed out, causing everyone to flinch back. Then she collapsed into tears, sobbing into her hands.

"Maggie…" Derek whispered, reaching out to her, but his hand stopped short, trembling, before withdrawing to his lap again. His ears were laid back in distress, his eyes glistening with tears of grief and shame as he hung his head.

Once more, Elisa silently damned both Xanatos and Dr. Anton Sevarius to a cold and lonely grave. Then she said slowly, "Maggie… If you really don't want to have this kid, whatever it will be… I know of a discreet doctor, who could--" she stopped when she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder.

She turned to see Goliath looking at her with such a look of anger and disgust on his face as she'd never seen before, except when he was talking about Sevarius himself. "I am going to try very hard to forget you ever said anything," he growled at her, before pushing past her to get down on one knee before Maggie, taking one of her hands in both of his huge ones. "Maggie, listen to me, please. Whatever this child will be, whether human or mutate, it's a life to be cherished, and it will have a home among my clan if nowhere else. Grant this child life, and if you cannot bear to raise it, then we will, I promise you."

Everyone stared at him wide-eyed, and Maggie whispered, "You will?"

"Yes! A child with wings would be like a hatchling to us, and there is no greater blessing! Even if it's born without wings, we cherish all life, and would be happy to raise it as best we can."

"Um, Big Guy, aren't you forgetting something?" Elisa asked. "Such as the minor fact that you're stone all day?"

"Then we'll find a nanny for the daylight hours!" Goliath said impatiently. "By the Dragon, Xanatos owes both us and you at least that much!"

Derek jerked his head up at that last sentence, growling. "Like Hell I'm letting any kid of mine have anything to do with Xanatos." Then he got off his butt and shouldered Goliath aside, to kneel in front of Maggie and hold her hand. "Maggie, I know we didn't plan this, but I love kids too, and I swear I'll love whatever our kid turns out to be. And maybe I'm not your idea of a perfect guy, but I love you, and… Maggie, will you marry me? Please?" he said plaintively, while Maggie stared at him wide-eyed.

"Hold on, don't answer him yet!" Elisa said hastily, as she all but shoved Goliath out the bathroom door with her. "Give us five seconds to get clear, and we'll give you some privacy. See you later, we're going to the main kitchen!"

Goliath almost balked and dug in his heels at being shoved around so abruptly, but Elisa knew just where to jab her nails to get him to move his tail with all due speed. Once they were out in the corridor, he said querulously, "If he asked her in front of us, why can't she answer him in front of us?"

"Because if she says no, Derek will feel humiliated, and he wouldn't want us to be there to see it. And if she says yes, he'll probably take her back to bed to celebrate, and **_I_** wouldn't want us to be there to see it."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

So they waited in the kitchen. While wanting to give them privacy, Elisa was also determined to stay until she heard what Maggie's answer was, because she knew her mother and father would tear strips off her if she didn't give them a full report when she met them for dinner the next night. After nearly half an hour of waiting, while they made small talk with the other Labyrinth residents who were still awake, Goliath sighed heavily, acknowledging to himself that tonight just wasn't going to go as planned. And he'd had such delightful plans for a night of pleasure with his beloved, too; and they had most emphatically not included spending this much time with the residents down here, discussing their problems with city officials and his clan's problems with the Quarrymen.

It rather appeared that whatever answer Maggie had given, Derek was not rushing out to share it with them. Goliath glanced sideways at Elisa, as she listened to a rather incoherent statement from one of the residents, and wondered if he could persuade her to leave with him now and come back for the answer later. Since she seemed to be a bit embarrassed by "PDA's" and public talk about mating, he'd have to be subtle about it. But that could be even more fun… He wiped the momentary wicked grin from his face before she could see it, then folded his hands in plain view on top of the table. But underneath the table, his tail slowly inched towards her seat…

Elisa suddenly gasped and stiffened in her seat, but before the man she had been talking to could say anything about it, the door swung open and two of the clones charged in, loudly but good-naturedly arguing with each other about who'd brought home the most meat so far tonight.

"Eight rats!" Malibu said loudly, swinging his sack in the air. "You got only seven, we both counted!"

"But mine's bigger!" and Hollywood dumped his catch of the night on the table to illustrate. "See?" Only then did he notice the two new people sitting at the table, namely Goliath and Elisa.

Elisa swallowed hard, looking decidedly green at the sight of the bloody rat carcasses dumped almost in her lap. Goliath just sighed and closed his eyes, knowing that it was definitely not his lucky night. Hollywood swallowed nervously at the sight of Goliath, then brightened and picked up the biggest rat in the pile, and held it out to him hopefully. "Present?"

Goliath suppressed another sigh and slapped a polite smile on his face. "Thank you; I accept. A clean kill," as he took it and looked it over with a critical eye. "And I'd say it weighs at least ten pounds; a good-sized one indeed." Hollywood beamed and thrust his already massive chest out even further. "Since we seem to be staying here for a while longer," as he smiled sweetly at a still greenish Elisa, "I will add this rat you have given me to the rest for cooking, and we will all eat together." And if he had any paper money on him, he'd bet it all that Elisa would find a really good reason to leave before dinner was ready, whether or not Derek and Maggie showed themselves again.

"Is good!" Hollywood and Malibu agreed, as they sat cross-legged on the floor and began skinning the rats they'd brought.

Goliath eyed the way they were clumsily skinning the rats for a minute or two, then couldn't stand it any longer and stood up. "Here, let me show you." He sat cross-legged beside Malibu and grabbed an unskinned rat from the pile. "Watch closely; this is the easiest and fastest way." And within seconds, his talons had both skinned and gutted the rat, and even broken the joints to make it easier to stuff in the pot later.

Malibu and Hollywood looked intently at his work, then tried to duplicate it. Malibu did his next rat in less than half the time it had taken to do his first one, and his chest also swelled with Goliath's praise. "Keep practicing, both of you, and soon you'll be able to do them as fast as the best of my clan," Goliath said as he got up and went back to where Elisa was still sitting. "Broadway can skin, gut and joint his rat kills in less than eight seconds! We timed him once," he said to Elisa in an aside. For some reason, she did not seem duly impressed by that fact.

Just a minute or two later, Dana and Claw showed up. Dana's sweatshirt had a few new tears in it, Claw's fur was in serious need of grooming, and both of them seemed embarrassed to find so many people smiling knowingly at them. But Dana just shrugged and headed for the kitchen counter, hunger overcoming her embarrassment, and Claw reluctantly joined her.

Just a few minutes after that, Derek came into the kitchens and asked where they'd hidden the tins of smoked oysters. "At least it's not pickles and ice cream she's craving!" he said with a grin, as he grabbed a tin and prepared to head back out.

Elisa literally pounced on him, grabbing his left wing and bracing her feet to keep him from going any farther. "You're not leaving this room until you tell me what the answer was!" Claw and Dana stared at her, then shrugged at each other, not having been filled in on the secret yet.

Derek blinked at her innocently and asked, "Answer to what?"

"**_Derek_**!"

"Oh, that. She said yes," he said off-handedly. Then he couldn't hold it in any longer and grabbed Elisa, spinning her around and whooping for joy. "She said yes! We're getting married! I don't know how yet, but we're getting married!"

"That's great, Derek!" Elisa said as soon as he set her down. "Listen, instead of me going to our parents' house for dinner, why don't you and Maggie come to my place right after sunset, and I'll cook dinner for everybody while you tell them the good news?" When Derek agreed, she said brightly, "Great! My fridge is almost empty, so I'm going to the grocery store right now to buy some things for the dinner and bake a cake to celebrate ahead of time, so sorry I can't stick around for supper here but I've gotta run!"

Goliath and Derek's eyes met in perfect understanding and mutual wry amusement as Elisa hurriedly grabbed her jacket and headed out the door. Yes, she'd do anything, even cook dinner for her parents and bake a cake, to avoid the rat stew.

Goliath made his apologies to the clones for not staying for dinner as well, and followed Elisa up to the surface. The night still had several hours left to it, and he had hopes of salvaging some of his plans for their night together. But after they had ascended a few levels towards the surface, the communicator strung around Goliath's neck began squawking. At first they heard mostly static, but after going up another level, they were able to make out Hudson's voice, saying in a tired monotone between surges of static, "Call Goliath. Lad, if you me, I'd appreciate "

Goliath thumbed the transmitter switch, and said, "Goliath here. What's happened, Hudson?"

"_Goliath_!" Hudson roared back. "Lad, where you? What's and Elisa?"

Hudson sounded near-frantic; something must be seriously wrong. "Wait 'till I'm closer to you, and try again!" Goliath shouted into his communicator before dropping to all fours and galloping for the surface at full speed. "Elisa, head for home and I'll see you there later!" he shouted over his shoulder.

Elisa ran after him, even though she knew she'd never catch up; Goliath was in full gallop mode, and nobody on two legs could keep up with a gargoyle in a real hurry. "I'll call you from my car set; let me know what's happened!" she shouted after him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Delilah was still at her post at the entrance to the Labyrinth, keeping watch over Elisa's car, when Goliath thundered past her so fast she was almost bowled over. Startled, she reflexively took a swing at him, but he dodged it without breaking stride, burst out the entrance and galloped right up the nearest wall, digging all four sets of talons into the brick at top speed, and launched as soon as he was high enough to catch a strong breeze under his wings. Only when he was in the air did he finally grab for the communicator again, to cut into Hudson's nearly nonstop demands for information and say, "I've been underground, in the Labyrinth! Elisa is safe, but what's been happening with the clan!"

"_Quarrymen_!" Hudson growled back at him. "They've got new weapons now, a device that shoots out electrified nets! They snagged Lexington with one, and Brooklyn barely got him away before those scurvy rats could beat him to death with their hammers. We first tried to contact you to warn you about the nets over an hour ago; with no response at all, even when Broadway went to Elisa's apartment, we've been fearing the worst!"

"I'm sorry, old friend," Goliath apologized sincerely, while inwardly cursing at the abysmal timing of his trip with Elisa, being out of contact with his clan when they needed him. "I didn't realize the communicators wouldn't penetrate to the heart of the Labyrinth. How is Lexington, is he badly hurt?"

"Hurt he was, but he'll live till sunrise. We were fair worried about him for a while there, but he woke up just a few minutes ago, and he can answer questions and count how many talons we're holding up. He's got some nasty burns from the net, though, we've been trying to find the medical kit for him, to ease his pains a bit until sunrise. I don't suppose ye know where it's kept?"

"No, unfortunately. Why can't Xanatos or Owen find it for you?"

"The entire family left for a vacation this last morning, lad; mother, father, babe, and their Fey nanny with them." Ever since the revelation of Owen Burnett's true nature, and Puck's binding by Oberon to use his powers only to protect and teach Alex, Hudson liked to subtly tease Owen by calling him that. So far, Owen had done nothing more than give him a chilling glance in return, but Goliath was half-fearing that Hudson would find himself the subject of Alex's next magic lesson. "Xanatos said they were going to the Bahamas, wherever that is; I gather 'tis a bit warmer there than New York is right now. Ye left just moments before he came and told us last night, and it wasna an emergency, so we didna bother ye with it at the time."

"Guys, it's me, I'm in the car now," Elisa's voice broke in. "What's happened?" Hudson filled her in, and when he was finished she said decisively, "Bring Lex to my apartment; I've got stuff for burns in my first aid kit."

Nearly the entire clan ended up converging on Elisa's apartment in ones and twos, splitting up while still blocks away and approaching from different angles; these nights, paranoia was a good thing. Lex came in carried in Broadway's arms, gritting his teeth against the pain from the burns crisscrossing his back, arms and wings. Elisa used the entire tube of burn ointment on him, slathering it on every electrical burn as she commented, "It's a good thing you guys are way tougher than the average human. The average man would probably still be comatose after that kind of attack." Or just plain dead; she did not say it but everyone knew it without her saying.

"Right now, being comatose doesn't sound too bad," Lex groaned, but he felt better almost immediately as the salve cooled and eased the pain of his burns. "Gahhh… Those rotten Quarrymen. Here we were trying to save a lady from a mugging, and they started firing at us as we glided past! I hope the lady got away from that guy with the knife… or at least didn't get hurt by him," he sighed, before scowling again. "Why are they picking on us, anyway? What are they all, reincarnated Vikings or something?"

"Now, that's a nasty thought," Hudson said with a wince. "Just the one ghost with Wolf was bad enough!"

"Talon has speculated that they may have ties to Tony Dracon," Goliath rumbled as he scowled. "But if so, Dracon has acquired far more information about our way of life than I had believed he knew. For now, describe that new weapon to us again."

They did, Lexington even drawing a sketch on a pad of paper of what he and Brooklyn had seen of it; it looked a little like a hand-held rocket-launcher, though with a longer projection tube that flared wide at one end. The electrified nets it shot out were roughly the width of Brooklyn's wingspan. The shot fired by the Quarrymen hadn't been dead on target, but the net had fanned out from the projectile head and slapped against Lexington as it shot past, and its electrical charge had knocked him unconscious. If Brooklyn hadn't caught him before he'd hit the ground and whisked him out of their reach, he would likely be dead by now. Apparently, though, the net-launchers only fired one shot before needing reloading, and they weren't as ubiquitous as the Quarryhammers yet; only one of these new weapons had been in use in that pack, and Brooklyn had glimpsed and heard one Quarrymen exhorting another to load a new net in as he got away. "But even one shot can be enough," Lexington growled as he examined the crisscrossing burns on his left side. The others had to agree with him.

Goliath sighed heavily, then decided it was time for some good news. When he said as much to the clan, they brightened and looked at him and Elisa with expectant expressions. "And what could that be, I wonder?" Hudson said with seeming innocence, much as Derek had earlier.

"My brother and Maggie are having a baby!" Elisa said hurriedly, before Goliath could announce anything else. "And they're getting married soon, though they haven't worked out the details yet."

"A baby mutate?" Brooklyn perked up, even though it hadn't been the news they'd been waiting for. "D'you suppose it'll have wings, too?"

"That'd be almost like having a hatchling around," Lex said wistfully. He'd assisted in the rookery a lot in the old days at Wyvern, before he'd qualified as a warrior, and as much as he enjoyed playing with and acting as 'night nurse' to Alex lately, the kid simply didn't have wings; there'd be no gliding and hunting lessons to teach in the near future. But a baby version of Derek or Maggie would be a whole different story… "When will it hatch, I mean be born?"

"We don't know yet; Maggie just found out tonight that she's expecting."

" 'Tis good to hear of new life being made, especially tonight," Hudson agreed. "Now, as I recall, it takes nine months to birth a human child, though there's no long wait afterwards for it to break its shell and take its first breath." He grinned. "That still gives us some time to make a few playthings for it, to welcome it to the world!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Later on, just an hour before dawn, Claw found himself Topside and looking at the building in front of him with mingled awe, suspicion and worry. Dana, also in front of him, was tugging impatiently on his hand, trying to get him to step out of the alley and cross the street. She signed at him that there was nothing to fear, but he wasn't so sure of that. He didn't know this neighborhood, not to mention that he always felt exposed outside the Labyrinth. He hadn't been out since the last time he'd taken the clones out for exercise (an exercise in frustration, since he couldn't shout after the clones when they started wandering off. He'd finally caught up with Malibu just moments before he would have landed in the middle of Times Square.)

Dana finally got fed up with him, and signed for him to _Stay there_! Then she hurried across the street, and disappeared into the large church on the corner. Claw waited anxiously for her to come out, wishing he'd insisted on knowing just what she'd wanted him to come up here for. But noooo, she signed that she wanted to surprise him… He hated surprises. He'd never much liked them before, but the last big surprise he'd gotten had been a furry hide and a pair of wings. Why, oh why had he let her talk him into this? Stupid question; because he was hopelessly in love with her, and she was the first woman to love him in return, ever. Even as an ordinary human, he'd never had a real girlfriend, just blind dates arranged by buddies and coworkers that had rarely resulted in second or third dates. He just couldn't believe that this vibrantly beautiful woman was actually interested in him, furry hide and wings and all. He kept wanting to pinch himself, then deciding against it, because if he really was just dreaming all this, then he didn't want to wake up.

If he wasn't still sporting a collection of bruises and cuts from his fight with Fang last night, he wouldn't believe it had happened at all. He'd never actually fought like that before, ever. When he'd been fighting the gargoyles, way back when, he'd been scared halfway out of his mind the entire time, firing off electrical blasts just to make sure that nobody came close enough to hurt him. When Fang had tried to take over the Labyrinth last year, Claw had gone along with him because Fang was a tough guy, who knew how to fight and wasn't afraid to kick anybody's butt. But last night, when he'd seen him threatening Dana… He didn't really remember the fight; it was like somebody else had been running his body for him, from the moment he saw Dana in Fang's grip. There was just a blur of fangs and snarls and punches, that stopped when Goliath had grabbed his hand, to keep him from ripping the unconscious Fang's throat out.

Then Dana had come running up, signing that he was her hero, and they'd gone to his room, and they'd actually… really… had sex! They'd made love, gone all the way, hit the home run, whatever you want to call it, and it had been FANTASTIC! If it meant that Dana was perverted for wanting to make love to a guy with fur and wings, he didn't care, because at long last he'd actually made love to a real woman, and it was a hundred times better than just doing it by hand had ever been. No, he definitely didn't want to wake up! Not when there was a chance that he could dream of Dana and him doing that again!

Daydreaming about having Dana in his arms again, he almost didn't notice when she came back out of the church until she was halfway across the street. And she had a strange man with her! He shrank back into the shadows, but she came right for him, almost dragging the other guy by the hand.

The strange man had obviously dressed in a hurry. He was also wearing an eyepatch over one eye, and sporting a priest's collar under his mis-buttoned shirt. He looked as bewildered as Claw felt, though not apparently apprehensive. Claw blinked when he got a closer look at the eyepatch; it had a little smiley face on it, of all things! Dana stopped the man—the priest--once they reached the sidewalk, then walked boldly into the alley and grabbed Claw by a hand, dragging the reluctant mutate out into the dim light from the street lamps.

The priest's one eye nearly popped out of his head, and he muttered to himself, "Dear Lord, she wasn't exaggerating at all!" But he quickly composed himself, and began signing. _Hello, I am Father S-u-l-l-_

Claw decided to take a chance, and interrupted him with a fast signed, _I can hear. Not speak, but hear._

The priest blinked again, then said out loud, "Well then, I am Father Sullivan. Dana, child, I trust you can still read my lips well enough?" When Dana nodded, he turned partway to face Claw again and said hesitantly, "Dana has informed me that you are human, er, despite your appearance?"

Claw signed, _Yes. Scientist, experiment, changed me and others. All have wings, fur, fangs_.

"Our Father in Heaven," Father Sullivan breathed in horror, his eyes wide. "H-how many?"

_Four survived_. Claw tried hard not to think about the ones he'd seen in their cages and spread out on the tables when he'd first been mutated. When Sevarius had finished with him, he'd been left with fur and wings but without a human voice, but he knew all too well that he could have been a lot worse off. At least he could still walk upright, he could still use his hands, and he didn't spend every waking minute silently screaming in pain… By the time Fang had arrived and been mutated and caged next to him, Dr. Sevarius had deemed the others as failed experiments, and… disposed of them. Every once in a while, Claw thought about telling the others about what he'd seen, if only to get them to stop asking him why he kept having nightmares. But all it would do is cause them to hate Sevarius and Xanatos even more, and what good would that do?

Father Sullivan echoed out loud, "Four survived. Oh, my… Who did this—no, I won't ask that. I am a priest now, and Vengeance is the Lord's," he said half to himself. Then he squared his shoulders, and asked Claw, "My son, are you a good Catholic?"

Despite the fact that he was 'talking' to a priest, that was absolutely the last question Claw had been expecting, and he just stood there with his mouth hanging open like an idiot for a good five seconds before signing, L-u-t-h-e-r-a-n.

"Ah. Well, I'm not opposed to interfaith marriages; I've performed a few in the last few years, and—yes, Dana?" he asked, because Dana had jumped between them, blushing furiously and signing so fast her hands were almost a blur. "Oh, I see! I misunderstood earlier; you want me to marry two _other_ changed people to each other!" He blinked, blushed and muttered to himself, "Stuck your foot in it again, didn't you, Johnny boy?"

Dana, in the meantime, had turned to Claw and was quickly signing that she'd tried to tell the priest about Maggie and Derek, but he'd misunderstood because she'd said earlier in the confessional that she was in love with a 'changed person', and how she wasn't trying to pressure him into anything, really, and…

Claw reached out and gently grasped her hands; he'd gotten the idea. He was blushing beneath his fur, not that anyone could tell, but he also was filled with a sudden wild energy, a craziness a little like what he'd felt last night, and this time he went with what it suggested knowingly, and most willingly. He signed to Father Sullivan, _Excuse us; please wait here_. Then he pulled Dana deeper into the alley.

When he was halfway to the alley's hidden entrance to the Labyrinth, he stopped and turned to Dana, who was looking at him worriedly. He deliberately flared his wings out and angled them so Father Sullivan couldn't see what either of them were signing, then sank down on one knee. Looking Dana right in the eyes, he asked her with his hands, _Will you marry me_?

YES! Dana gave her answer loud and clear when she hugged him tight and peppered his muzzle with kisses. Then she stepped back and, grinning from ear to ear, started pulling him back to Father Sullivan. He grinned a tigery grin and pulled her back to his side with a wing, and they walked back together with their arms around each other.

Father Sullivan was smiling when they returned to him. "I couldn't see what you were saying to each other, but I trust you have good news for me?"

Grinning from ear to ear, Dana signed that her man had just asked her to marry him. Father Sullivan congratulated them both, then asked if Claw would pardon him, but he had another item he wanted to clear up with Dana. He gently turned Dana and himself around, so Claw couldn't see what he was signing, then apparently asked her a question. Dana grinned, and signed back with her hands up high enough that Claw could see them clearly. _Baby coming for others, not yet for me. Wait a few months, ask again_! Claw blushed beneath his fur again.

Father Sullivan's good eye seemed troubled when he turned back to Claw, but he still smiled when he said, "Well, then, can I meet these other two 'changed people' who want to get married?"

Claw nodded, and led the way into the Labyrinth. It was a short walk to the entrance they'd used, but a long walk down to the main areas of the Labyrinth, and along the way Dana told the priest about their home and the people who shared it with them. She was walking nearly backwards to use her hands in talking to the priest and to see his responses, but Claw had done this with her before and kept a hand on her shoulder, steering her past obstacles without a break in her conversation. Father Sullivan considerately both signed and spoke aloud his questions, so Claw could understand at least half of the conversation while he guided them down.

"Amazing," Father Sullivan said and signed for the umpteenth time as they came to the main assembly hall. "I'd very much like to meet these other sentient creatures, these… what did you call them again?"

Claw paused and took a moment to stoop in the ever-present dust and write with a clawtip, _GARGOYLES_. Then he signed, _Too late today. Sun up outside, they sleep_. But Dana argued that he could at least see them in stone; the gargoyles didn't mind if someone looked at them during the day, so long as nobody tried to chip or damage them. Claw considered, then nodded and led the way to their chamber.

"Amazing!" for the umpteenth-and-one time, as Father Sullivan walked around the five statues posed in the chamber, studying them from every angle. "I can scarcely believe it… But the news cast a few weeks ago very clearly showed winged creatures leaving the ruins of St. Damien's. Another sentient species! Father O'Malley, may he rest in peace, would have turned cartwheels all the way down 42nd Street for a chance like this."

By this time they had attracted an audience from the Labyrinth residents who preferred the daytime, and Dana was kept busy signing explanations to everyone who could understand her, while they relayed the information to everyone else. After he'd seen the gargoyle clones, Father Sullivan asked if he could talk to the prospective bride and groom, and a fair-sized crowd trooped with him down the hall to Derek and Maggie's quarters. Grinning from ear to ear, Dana did her distinctive knock, a rapid tattoo played on the door. After a few moments, they heard movement inside, and a male voice groaning, "Dammit, Dana, let a body sleep once in a while!" The door opened to reveal Derek still in his sleeping shorts, and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "All right, already, I'm up--huh?" as he saw the priest.

"Good morning, and I'm sincerely sorry to disturb you; Dana didn't tell me you would be sleeping now," Father Sullivan said calmly as he held out his hand. "My name is Father Sullivan. And you are?"

Still staring, Derek numbly held his clawed hand out, and stammered as the priest shook it without even blinking, "Derek Ma--Talon."

"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Matalon. I understand you've recently become engaged to be married?" By this time, Maggie had scrambled out of bed as well to stand behind Derek and stare at the mysterious stranger. Father Sullivan smiled at the feline head poking out from behind his wing and said just as pleasantly, "And would you be his fiancée?"

Maggie nodded dumbly, then found her voice and her courage a moment later, stepping out from behind Derek's wing and holding out one hand while clenching her tattered bathrobe shut with the other. "I'm Maggie Reed. Um, pleased to meet you?" as she blushed beneath her fur at being caught 'living in sin' by a man of the cloth.

"The pleasure is mine," was all he said as they shook hands as well. "When exactly are you and Mr. Matalon planning to marry?"

"We, uh, haven't set a date yet, and my name's actually Derek Maza, but folks down here call me Talon. And I've just got to ask you, why is there a smiley face on your eyepatch?"

Father Sullivan merely smiled benignly and said, "Why not?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Roughly two hours later, Elisa was sound asleep when the phone rang. "Ohhh… Oh, not again," she groaned as she came more-or-less awake and lifted her head slightly. This was the second time in two days that somebody had woken her up from a sound sleep. If this was another telemarketer, she'd take savage pleasure in informing them that their product was now on her never-touch-again list, she thought as she reached for the phone. "…Hello?"

"Good morning, and I'm sorry to disturb you," a man said pleasantly. "My name is Father Sullivan, and I'm calling on behalf of--"

"I gave at the office!" -click- and Elisa rolled over and buried her head in her pillow again.

But a few seconds later, the phone rang again. Elisa thought for a moment about simply yanking the cord out of the wall, but that would involve actually getting out of bed. She snarled as she picked the handset up again, "Whaddaya want!"

"To speak with you on behalf of your brother," the man said bluntly, with just a trace of annoyance in his own voice. "That is, assuming you are the sister of Derek Maza?"

"Derek! Oh yes, I am, and I'm sorry about earlier!" Elisa said as she sat bolt upright. "What's happened?"

"There's no need to panic, miss," Father Sullivan said soothingly. "He and his fiancée were both doing well when I left them an hour ago. But they asked me to telephone you, as their phone is, ah, currently inoperative, and let you know to expect three more for dinner tonight. They wish for, ah, Dana, her gentleman and myself to attend as well, so we and your family can discuss the upcoming nuptials."

Elisa blinked at his cautious phrasing, then decided that somebody who didn't know about the mutates or the Labyrinth was close enough to overhear on the priest's end of the line. "Well, sure. And it's a good thing you called ahead; I wasn't ready to feed three extra people."

Father Sullivan chuckled. "That's quite all right; if you have enough place settings, I can provide enough food. My parishioners keep me well supplied with casseroles."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Before she'd gone to bed at dawn, Elisa had called her parents and asked them to come to her apartment for dinner instead, because Derek and Maggie were coming as well. So, shortly before sunset, Peter and Diane Maza showed up on her doorstep with a pot roast in a warming dish and curious, half-excited, half-dreading expressions on their faces. Diane handed the pot roast over to her daughter as she asked just a little too casually, "So, will anyone else be coming to dinner besides Derek and Maggie:"

Elisa stuck the pot roast in the oven to keep warm with the side dishes she'd made as she looked at her mother in surprise. "How'd you guess? Yes, Claw and his ladyfriend are coming too. I don't know if you've met her yet; her name's Dana. Also one other guest they're bringing with them, I think." Elisa decided to keep the identity of the last guest a mystery for the moment, so she didn't inadvertently spill the beans about the engagement ahead of time.

Peter and Diane looked at each other for a moment in surprise, then back at her. "And… that's all? No other guests?"

"Such as Goliath?" Elisa smiled wryly. "No, he's staying with the clan tonight." Realizing that she'd just implied that he spent some nights elsewhere, she hurriedly went on, "Last night was a pretty rough one for them; Lexington was almost killed in a Quarryman ambush while on patrol." She explained about the ambush and the Quarrymen's new weapon as she set the table, then shut off the motion-sensor alarm for the balcony, successfully diverting their attention from her earlier slip.

Her parents didn't know yet that she and Goliath were lovers--at least, she thought they didn't know--and tonight was not the night to tell them. Part of her wondered about announcing it just after Derek and Maggie told them about the baby, speculating that it might have less impact while they were still reeling from the shock of having a winged grandkid on the way, but it would hardly be fair play. No, just one bombshell at a time, and the one her brother was about to drop on them would be plenty.

As if her thoughts had cued them, two heavy thumps were heard from the balcony. Elisa hurried to open the door for them, and Derek and Maggie tucked their wings close about them and came inside. Once they had cleared the balcony, Claw came down with a heavier thump, carrying Dana in his arms. Both Derek and Maggie looked a combination of happy and nervous, but both Claw and Dana were just grinning from ear to ear.

Over the past year or so, Diane and Peter Maza had learned to deal with a lot of surprises and unexpected events: their son's mutation, the existence of gargoyles, and mythological figures suddenly appearing and embroiling them in their Fey schemes. So when they learned that Dana was deaf, they didn't even blink; Diane merely dug into her purse and pulled out a small notepad and pencils for herself and her husband to share in writing down whatever they wanted to say to her. "Actually, Dana's pretty good at reading lips," Derek offered, adding with a wry feline grin, "for those folks who have standard lips, anyway."

"I'd still better write it down," Peter said matter-of-factly as he put the notepad in his shirt pocket. "Your mother's told me more than once that I have a tendency to mumble."

Shortly after the first round of introductions was over, the doorbell rang. Elisa opened the door to find a man standing there with a priest's collar under his casual clothes, an eyepatch (with a smiley face?) over his right eye, and two covered casserole dishes in his arms. "Good evening! Would this be the Maza residence?" he asked cheerfully.

"It would be indeed, assuming you're Father Sullivan," Elisa said once she wrenched her gaze away from that smiley face. "Come on in!"

Introductions were made once more, but conversation was rather stilted, with no one quite sure of what everyone else knew and not wanting to unwittingly spill secrets, until the food was put on the table and everyone invited to come and sit down. Claw tested his chair with a heavy hand on the cushion before sitting in it, apparently unsure it would hold his weight, but Elisa assured him that he'd have no problems. (He might have before, but the moving company Xanatos had hired for her in moving to her new apartment had accidentally damaged a leg on one of the old chairs, and Elisa had seized on the excuse to buy a whole new dining set, selected with Goliath's massive frame in mind. It had been expensive, and she had toyed with the idea of presenting Xanatos with the bill since he had hired the movers, but ultimately decided she'd rather not be beholden to him for anything.)

Elisa herself wasn't in the habit of saying grace before meals, but since there was a priest present, she decided to cover her bets by asking Father Sullivan to say it. He nodded solemnly, then folded his hands on the table and closed his eyes, while everyone else hurriedly assumed the same reverent posture. After a few moments of letting awkwardly reverent silence reign, the priest said solemnly, "Good food, good meat! Good God, let's eat!"

Six pairs of eyes snapped open wide for a moment, not quite believing what they'd heard. Then Maggie started giggling, while Derek and Peter nearly fell out of their chairs laughing. Dana had been sitting quietly with her eyes half-shut, waiting for a visual cue that the grace was over; now she eyed everyone else as they broke up, then gave Father Sullivan an impatient look; she hated not being let in on the joke. Convulsing in his seat with silent laughter, Claw quickly signed to her, _Priest say funny kid's prayer_! Dana smiled and nodded in understanding; she knew well that Father Sullivan knew how to break up tension in a room like nobody else.

After that, everyone dished food onto their plates and began eating with good humor and good appetites. And now that the ice had been broken, Derek had no problems in saying as he served himself some of the seafood casserole, "Mom, Dad, Maggie and I are getting married. So are Claw and Dana, and we'd like to make it a double wedding."

"Well, that's wonderful, Derek! Congratulations to both of you, that is, to all four of you!" Diane said with a smile. "Have you set a date yet?"

"Not yet; Father Sullivan said this morning that he'd look at his calendar and get back to us," as all four of the affianced turned to look at him questioningly.

Father Sullivan consulted a small notebook he'd pulled out of his pocket and said, "The church is, I'm afraid, booked solid for the evenings of the next fourteen weekends. But the Tuesday and Thursday evenings of next week are available… or I could conduct the ceremony in the Labyrinth. I'm available to do so every night the next week after nine o'clock, except Saturday and Wednesday. Since there won't be a Mass involved, the ceremony can be conducted elsewhere beside the Sanctuary. One of the rooms I saw in the Labyrinth this morning would make an excellent locale for a chapel."

"So soon?" Diane asked in surprise. "I thought that Catholics required a long waiting period and pre-marital counseling before…" she stopped, and looked at both Dana and Maggie with narrowed eyes. "All right, I'll be blunt about it. Which one of you is pregnant?"

Maggie cringed in her seat but timidly raised her hand. Derek said defensively, "But I was going to ask her to marry me anyway; this just moved up the timetable a little!"

Peter and Diane just looked at each other for a few moments; then Peter sighed as he dug out his wallet and handed Diane a ten-dollar bill. "You win. We're having a grandkid with wings after all."

Elisa couldn't help blushing, and Diane's lips quirked in a wry smile as she put the bill in her purse.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Elsewhere in town, two more people were sitting down to dinner. "It's quite kind of you to invite me to dine with you here," Jon Castaway said with a polite smile as he sat in the chair the maitre d' had pulled out for him at the Four Seasons.

"Not at all," his companion, a man named Oliver Grimm, said as he glanced over the wine list. "I'm a firm believer in mixing a little pleasure into business affairs." Once they'd made their selections and the maitre d' had left for the wine cellar, Grimm asked, "Have the net-mortars been given a field test yet?"

"They have," Castaway said with a half-smile, half-frown. "Squad Three reported that theirs worked exactly as we'd hoped; the gargoyle they shot dodged part of the net but was hit by the expanding edge, and just that glancing blow was enough to knock him unconscious. Unfortunately, he was caught by another gargoyle before he could hit the ground, and they escaped before we could finish loading another net-pod into it. We're going to need to equip the teams with more than one of those net-mortars for them to be effective against those beasts, if they continue to travel in pairs instead of solo."

"I'll see about stepping up production, then. My staff is limited, however, and it may be a few weeks before we'll have as large a quantity of net-mortars as we do of Quarryhammers."

"I don't think it'll be necessary to equip each member of the hunting squads with a net-mortar as well as a Quarryhammer; to be blunt about it, not all of them are good shots at the practice range, and we'd end up wasting rather expensive ammunition. I was thinking more along the lines of two to four mortars per squad of eight Quarrymen, with enough net-pods to load each one twice. The poor shots would be useful reloading the used mortars while the expert shots fire them, and once their prey has fallen out of the sky and into range of their hammers, can put them to proper use as well."

"Excellent tactics!" Grimm said admiringly.

"Merely making the best use out of the materials you've supplied me with," Castaway said modestly. "And I must tell you again, those Quarryhammers are the work of genius, as well as the net-pods! One of our most recent recruits is an electrical engineer, and he spent some time marveling over them after the last meeting."

Now Grimm frowned. "You'll need to discourage such curious souls from tampering with the equipment. It's entirely conceivable that an explosion could result, not just a fatal shock."

"Yes, I made that quite clear to the gentleman in question. And he was indeed careful about handling them, but it wouldn't hurt to caution my lieutenants about other curious souls joining their squads."

"Yes, safety must come first. After all, isn't that what the main goal of the Quarrymen is, to make the streets safe for humanity once again?" and Grimm smiled, a hard and cruel smile.

TO BE CONTINUED…


	3. A Day Late and a Dollar Short

**LIFE GOES ON**

**_Revelations of the Labyrinth, Part 3 (A Day Late & A Dollar Short)_**

By Kimberly T.

Elisa smothered another yawn behind her hand as she stumbled into the fabric store behind her mother, and blearily wondered if she was somehow cursed to have her sleep interrupted for the rest of her days.

Last night, at the impromptu dinner party held at her apartment, Derek and the other mutates had surprised her parents with the news that Maggie was pregnant, and she and Derek were getting married immediately, along with Claw and his sweetheart Dana. After some discussion with Father Sullivan, they had decided to hold the ceremony in the heart of the Labyrinth, next Sunday night at nine o'clock. Diane had then declared, with a look of grim determination, that the schedule gave her six days to find or make wedding attire for all four of the prospective brides and grooms.

The offer surprised nearly everybody there, except for her husband Peter, who merely looked resigned. "Mom, I appreciate the thought, but they don't exactly make tuxes with wing holes," Derek had interjected wryly.

"Then they'll have to be adapted, and I'm a fair hand with a needle and thread if I do say so myself. But I don't care if you've got fur or scales, no son or daughter-in-law of mine is getting married in shorts!"

With that, as soon as dinner was finished she'd marched them one at a time into Elisa's bedroom for a full set of chest, back, waist, hip and inseam measurements. (Poor Claw, cringing in embarrassment, had to be dragged in there by Diane and Dana together.) Elisa interrupted the measurements long enough to grab her things and head out the door to work, trusting her parents to lock up for her when everybody was gone.

Her shift that night had been uneventful, thankfully, and she'd gone back home and flopped into bed, after a quick phone call to Goliath at the castle to let him know about the upcoming wedding. "And Derek said you're all invited, too," she finished.

"I trust this wedding will be less… eventful than the last one I attended," Goliath said wryly, referring to his first adventure with the Phoenix Gate. "Er… we still have an hour or so before sunrise, and Xanatos and his family are still away. Would you like to come to the castle for a short while?"

"I'd like to, but (yawn) I haven't had enough sleep for two days in a row now, and I'd like to catch up while I can. But if they're still gone, I'll come by tonight after sunset, okay?" When Goliath said that was fine, she blew him a kiss through the phone (then had to explain to him what the funny sound was; another cultural difference), hung up and went to bed.

And at exactly ten o'clock, she was woken up by a rapid tattoo of knocking on the door again. "Dana, for Christ's sake, some of us have to work nights!" she yelled at the door as she threw on her sweats, even though she knew darn well that Dana couldn't hear her. She grumbled as she stumbled out and opened the door, "Oughta throw you off the balcony or make you empty the kitty litter or… um, hi, Mom."

Standing right next to Dana, her mother had given her a raised eyebrow, but said nothing about what she'd heard of Elisa's mutterings. "I am sorry to disturb you, but we seem to have left Claw's measurements here last night. Did you happen to see the paper I wrote them on?" She'd let them in, and they'd found the necessary paper, and somehow by the time they'd left Elisa had found herself coming along with her mother and Dana while they shopped for clothes and fabric. It must be a mom thing, she decided as she smothered another yawn.

They'd decided to start with the shirts and jackets for the men first, since those could be bought off the rack (assuming the stores had the right styles in extra-extra-extra-large, to accommodate Claw's massive frame) and have slots sewn into the back for wings. Diane confided that she had hopes that they could buy Maggie's dress off the rack, as well as Dana's; a traditional wide skirt wouldn't have to be modified for Maggie's legs, and if the dress was backless her wings wouldn't be a problem either. Elisa agreed that the less work they had to do on the clothing, the better, particularly since she had a strong hunch that her mother would be doing most of the work in Elisa's apartment. It was closer to the Labyrinth, and the mutates would be a little less conspicuous flying there than they would if they had to go out to the suburbs where Diane and Peter lived for their fittings.

The Men's Big and Tall store had a white linen shirt and formal suit jacket of dove-gray silk that would fit Derek, once the wing-slots were cut, but nothing that would fit Claw; the salesman kept asking them if they were sure they'd written the measurements down correctly. So they went to a fabric store next, to find the right material and clothing pattern for a shirt and jacket that could be modified to fit Claw. "I'm going to need to do several fittings, for the boys' pants and for Claw's shirt and jacket, but… this pattern looks like it would suit," Diane said as she eyed one critically. "What do you think, Dana? Dana?" as she looked around, not seeing the deaf woman anymore. "Elisa, did you see where she went?"

Elisa blinked, and confessed that she hadn't even noticed she was gone until then. Just then, Dana came running up to them with her face aglow and a bolt of fabric in her arms. It was a luxurious white satin, and Dana grinned as she draped a length of it over one outstretched arm so they could see the jacquard pattern woven into it, row upon row of shining white feathers. Dana said excitedly as she held her arm high to simulate an extended wing, "Maggie!"

Uh-oh. Elisa looked at her mother, and saw exactly what she was afraid of; a look of sheer inspiration and delight as Diane smiled. "My boy's going to marry an angel," she proclaimed, and Elisa quietly groaned and mentally kissed the next six days of sleep goodbye.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Detective Elisa Maza wasn't the only one in the world not getting enough sleep. The next day, a sleek red-and-black helicopter came in for a landing on the helipad of the Aerie Building, and three passengers stumbled out. David Xanatos wearily nodded his head to the pilot as he carried most of the family's luggage off and set it down outside. Fox came out next, her normally aggressive, astonishingly sexy walk now a tired shuffle, as she carried the baby bags and things in one arm, and their crying son in the other. The former mercenary, former leader of The Pack, the woman once judged by Soldier of Fortune magazine as ranking high among the Top Ten Lethal Ladies of America, was groaning as she shuffled along, "Never again. I swear to God, never again. This kid ain't leaving the building until he's twenty-one."

"If all kids are this much trouble when traveling, it's a wonder the human race didn't die out a few millennia ago," David agreed as he gestured for one of the employees running up to take their luggage for them. " Remind me to ask my dad if I was this much of a pain in the ass when I got ear infections as a kid; I almost think they would have thrown us out of the hotel, if we didn't own it already. Three days of nonstop crying… Alex, I mean for you to do great things when you're older, but for the love of God if there is one, will you stop trying to set a world record for screaming!" Alex answered him with another earsplitting wail, as they took the elevator up to their living quarters.

"And it didn't help that Owen left on the first day," Fox growled as the elevator stopped and they stepped out. "I'd almost believe he told the lab upstate to call us just then to get him off our vacation, just so he didn't have to stay and help with Alex."

"I assure you, ma'am, the call was genuine," Owen said as he suddenly appeared in front of them. "And I believe you'll be pleased to learn that the project is indeed a success."

As tired as he was, Xanatos perked up as he asked, "It really works?"

"I saw the results with my own eyes, sir. And after careful study of the procedures, I believe that yes, it will work quite well on all four affected. When I returned this morning, I took the liberty of bringing Dr. Morgenstern and his presentation equipment along with me, and installing him in one of the dorm rooms in the main building. He says that he's ready to proceed whenever you're ready."

"Well, no time like the present; let me just freshen up a bit, and we'll go within the hour! Fox, honey, can you handle Alex alone for that long?"

"Oh, sure, just as soon as I see the docs and get my eardrums removed," Fox said with a grimace.

"The hotel doc did say it looked like it was clearing up this morning, before we aggravated it with the flight back. And once it does, then we'll have only the teething to deal with, and that won't be half as bad, right?" Fox just looked at him. "Well, we can hope anyway. Owen, have you had a chance to review the security tapes yet? Any trouble with the gargoyles?"

I ran through them at high speed, sir, and it seems that Lexington was injured on patrol the night after we all left, but has since made a full recovery. More details will have to wait until a more thorough reviewing, or until they wake up at sunset. However, you might wish to see something that they have been working on," as he led the way to the gargoyles' living quarters. Once there, he gestured wordlessly to a box set up in a corner of the room, next to the television.

Inside the box were a worn-looking rubber ball, a naked Ken doll, and a set of worn and faded alphabet blocks. "Looks like they're collecting kids' toys, and bringing them back here for cleaning up," Xanatos mused as he stroked his beard. "You don't suppose that Elisa…?"

"And over here, by Angela's favorite cushion; looks like she's sewing some clothes for the Ken doll!" Fox said with a smile as she held up a few scraps of cloth.

"And the cameras clearly showed Hudson out on his usual perch, using his talons to whittle scrap wood into a small set of carved animals for playing with," Owen said with a completely straight face.

"Well, I don't think it's the right year for Angela to be expecting an egg already, so it's either Elisa and Goliath who are expecting a bundle of joy, or they're bringing in toys for Alex to play with when he's in their quarters. Owen, how has Goliath been looking for the last few nights, assuming he's even been here at all?" as Xanatos smiled wryly.

"He has been here for most of the last two nights, sir, and his expression has lacked the, shall we say, rather stunned look usually associated with men when they've just learned of impending fatherhood." Deep inside Owen's icy-calm exterior, Puck grinned at the memory of the way David Xanatos had looked and acted when Fox had broken the news to him. He'd been walking into walls and buttonholing random employees with delighted but near-incoherent babblings for nearly an hour afterwards; then he'd gone out and bought nearly the whole first floor of merchandise at FAO Schwartz. "I therefore conclude that he is not yet a parent-to-be."

"So the toys must be for Alex! That's just so sweet," Fox said with a tired smile. "Maybe they can handle his crying better than I can right now. David, how soon can you make the sun set?"

"If only I could, my dear," he half-chuckled. "But in the meantime, there is something great I _can_ do, finally…"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Elisa groaned and squinted at her clock when the knock came at her door. Her mother had promised last night, after hauling all her sewing supplies to Elisa's apartment, that she wouldn't come any sooner than 4 p.m. to work on her sewing, and she'd let herself in with the key Elisa gave her and work quietly until Elisa actually got up. But here it was not even two o'clock, and somebody was pounding on her door again. Whoever it was didn't have Dana's rapid, drum-solo way of knocking, but was still pretty annoying and just a little too loud to ignore. Maybe she should just take her pillow and a sleeping bag and go crash under Goliath's wings again at the castle…

The knocking stopped just before she got to the door, and when she peeped out the peephole, she didn't see anyone there. Whoever it was must have gotten tired of waiting for her. She almost turned around and went back to bed, but some little perverse demon for self-punishment made her open the door to see if her visitor was still in sight down the hall. She looked both ways but didn't see anyone; then she noticed the white envelope taped to the doorknob.

She opened the envelope to find a sheet of plain white stationery inside, and unfolded it to read in block letters: _You are cordially invited to a party at Derek and Maggie's home, at 4 p.m. today_. "Party?" she said aloud in puzzlement. Then she figured out that Ruth and a few other Labyrinth residents must be throwing a bridal shower for Maggie and Dana, and were inviting their 'uptown' friends and families to attend. It was awfully short notice for a party, but heck, so was the notice for the wedding. Or maybe it was a baby shower; either way, she'd better get moving. She hurriedly showered, and toweled her hair dry as she grabbed the phone when it rang. "Hi, Mom. No, I'm up already; I just got a note… You, too, huh? D'you suppose it's for a bridal shower? …Well, I was thinking about running out to the nearest Victoria's Secret, and grabbing something backless for Maggie and something in tiger-print for Dana, then going to the kids' store next door to pick up a baby blanket just in case it's a baby shower as well. …Yeah, candles are always good for a bridal shower, and I know Maggie loves vanilla scent. Um, try a spice scent for Dana. And while you're at it, you could pick up another half-dozen tins of smoked oysters, that's Maggie's current craving… Okay, see you and Dad at the garage entrance just before four!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A few minutes before four p.m., Elisa shoehorned her Fairlane in next to her mother's sensible Chevrolet sedan, in the underground parking garage that led to a secret entrance to the Labyrinth. She hoisted her purchases high in triumph--let's hear it for customer service and free gift wrapping!--and Diane likewise hoisted high her purchases for a bridal shower. What they were bringing to the baby shower if it turned out to be that instead was obvious; the back of the sedan was stuffed with infant toys and supplies, most of which her parents had saved from when she and her brother and sister had used them. "We'd already started going through them when somebody left the invitation on our doorstep," Peter explained with a smile.

"This one's wrapped for presenting at the party," Diane said as she held up a package wrapped in a cheery yellow with tiny balloons and multi-colored teddy bears. "We'll bring down the rest afterwards."

Elisa agreed that was a good strategy, just in case this was supposed to be just a bridal shower, as she slid aside a parking sign on the wall and pressed the release for the hidden door. "Sometimes, I really wonder about the guy who designed this whole setup for Cyberbiotics in the first place," she remarked as a section of wall suddenly slid away to reveal the tunnel behind it. "He must have watched one too many James Bond movies." Her parents agreed as they walked down the tunnels to the Labyrinth's main living quarters.

When they got there, they found the mutates all gathered in Derek and Maggie's quarters. Claw and Derek were trying to fix up a crib they'd found, while Maggie and Dana were sorting through a box of used-but-still-useable ribbons, bows and silk flowers, planning how to decorate the main assembly hall for the upcoming nuptials.

As soon as they saw Diane, the males dropped their tools and cowered defensively. "Aw, no, don't tell me you've got to paper me for pants patterns again!" Derek pleaded with hands raised, as Claw tried to hide behind Dana (with absolutely no success). Diane snorted in amused derision at both of them, but Peter smiled in wry sympathy; there was something both silly and scary about somebody applying sheets of thin tissue paper to one's body and securing them with thin and sharp pins, and fitting them very close to highly vulnerable parts of the male anatomy. Then they'd had to stand perfectly still while she'd slowly drawn diagrams on the paper to make patterns for sewing…

After giving the males a mock-disgusted look, Diane smiled at Maggie and Dana. "No, we're here for a different reason today!" She didn't see any other Labyrinth residents around for the moment, and decided not to say anything about the party just then in case they were just too early. All she did was pull out a tin of smoked oysters for Maggie, saying that they'd had a special on them at the local grocery store.

Maggie smiled wryly at her, and at her grinning fiancé. "So everyone knows my cravings now? This is a little embarrassing." But embarrassment didn't keep her from popping the tin open and scarfing down the oysters like a pre-schooler with French fries.

"Don't fret about it; we all get odd cravings when we're expecting," Diane said soothingly. "When I was pregnant with Elisa, I had Peter running out in the middle of the night for Chinese food; I just could not eat enough chop suey! And when I carried Derek, it was peanut butter and lamb chops!"

"Oh, yuck! Together!" Derek said with ears laid back, as Claw expressively wrinkled his muzzle. (Elisa couldn't help snickering at their reaction, considering what the mutates had for stew most nights.)

"Yes, and you were the reason why, mister, so get those ears up straight again!" as she gave her son a mock-glare.

"This looks like it should be a fine crib, with a little more work," Peter said as he looked it over.

"Yeah, a couple new screws here and there, a new mattress and a new coat of paint, and it'll be ready for Junior. You know, I think it's actually more satisfying to do something like this than to just go out and buy a brand new one."

"It is, because you're already proving how much you'll love your child," Peter said with a smile and approving hand on his shoulder. "Work and caring will always show a parent's love better than money ever could."

Maggie smiled too, as she came over and hugged Derek. "It's funny, just three days ago I was absolutely terrified at the thought having of a kid like us, but now, well, I guess we'll love her however she looks."

"Love him," Derek corrected with a teasing smile. "It's a boy."

"It's a girl," Maggie immediately retorted with her own teasing smile. "We women can tell about these things, you know. And we're right, oh, about fifty percent of the time."

Elisa grinned at the banter, then said, "So, have you figured out how far along you are yet?"

"About six weeks, I think," Maggie said as she looked down at her abdomen. "Except I think I'm already starting to show a bit… Maybe I'm just retaining water?"

"Or maybe you're farther along than six weeks," Diane said reasonably. "It's easy to get dates confused."

"Except I'm positive that my last period was two weeks before the gargoyle clones came down here to live, because it was still going on the last time Derek and I sneaked over to your house for dinner. And the week after, well…" Maggie's ears went back and her facial fur bristled slightly as she ducked her head; all the signs that she was blushing beneath her fur.

Diane smiled knowingly. "I take it you and Derek did something rather memorable the week after that."

"W-we went gliding together, and did it on top of the World Trade Center, and I can't believe I'm saying this to my future in-laws!" Maggie exclaimed, while an equally embarrassed Derek tried to hide behind Claw.

"Oh, yeah? Which tower?" Elisa asked with a grin.

After a few more moments of teasing, Diane decided it was time to find out what had happened to the party they'd been invited to attend. She gestured first at the crib, saying, "Derek, why don't you put that in the bedroom for a little while, to clear the floor out here?" Derek looked at her questioningly, but picked it up with one hand and carried it off with ease. Diane then turned with an expectant look to Dana, figuring that since Ruth was nowhere in sight, she had been the one to send the invitation. But Dana just looked back at her quizzically, and Elisa and her parents frowned at each other in confusion. "This is odd… I know how word of these things usually slips out one way or another, so I'll just ask straight out, has anyone here heard anything about a party?" Diane asked.

"What, besides the one next Sunday? I haven't heard anything," Derek said as he returned to the living room. Neither had Maggie, or Claw, or Dana.

Diane reached into her ever-ready purse, and pulled out the envelope she'd received. "Then, none of you know anything about this?" More shaking of heads and furrowed brows. "Then, if none of the other residents sent this, and you didn't, and Dana didn't… Then who did?"

"Actually, I did."

All heads turned at the unexpected voice coming from the corridor, to see David Xanatos standing there and grinning at them all.

"XANATOS!" Derek leaped straight for his former employer, his most hated enemy. His way was hurriedly blocked by Owen Burnett, who swung his stone forearm to smack Derek across the chops with it. The heavy stone hit Derek hard enough to momentarily stun him, and he stepped back a pace.

But Claw, surprisingly, stepped into the fray too, grabbing Owen by that same arm at the top of its swing and using it to fling him halfway across the room. Then he grabbed the startled Xanatos by the shirt with his other hand. Before he could do anything more than grab, Xanatos regained enough sense to karate-chop down on a pressure point to loosen Claw's grip, then jerked away, shouting, "Truce! I didn't come here to fight!"

"I didn't come to you to be mutated, either!" Derek snarled as he went straight for Xanatos again. With both Claw and Derek against him, Xanatos quickly found himself pinned against the wall by both arms, with a set of claws at his throat and Derek snarling, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just rip your throat out here and now."

"H-how about, if you do, I can't cure you after all?" Xanatos gasped out.

Everyone's eyes went wide at his words. Then Derek's eyes narrowed and he spat out, "What, another phony cure dangled in front of us like bait? Like we're going to believe you this time!"

Owen had gotten to his feet and limped over to them, fearlessly placing his human hand on Derek's shoulder as he said in his usual flat tone, "Mr. Xanatos does not lie about this cure, Mr. Maza. I have seen it work with my own eyes, and I assure you, we have a cure for your condition now."

"And Xanatos' favorite stooge is supposed to be more trustworthy than he is?" Derek snarled back, still not letting go of Xanatos' throat.

"I-if I may come in now? Please don't kill me," came timidly from the door. All heads turned again, to see another man standing there, a short and balding fellow with a briefcase in one hand and a larger case in the other, with a small cage at his feet that he was hesitantly pushing into the room. Inside the cage was a small golden marmoset, who was crouched and shivering at the bottom.

"And who the hell are you?" Elisa barked out, her hand still on her gun, as it had been since Xanatos had announced himself.

"H-Horace Morgenstern, at your service," the man said with a clumsy bow, losing his grip on his briefcase. It banged against the cage as it hit the floor, and the monkey inside shrieked in fear. Horace quickly got down onto his knees beside the cage and said soothingly, "There, there, Perkins, I'm sorry I scared you, it's all right now, these people won't hurt you…" Then he looked uncertainly at the others. "At least, I hope not?"

The man's utterly harmless and uncertain demeanor made Elisa say almost before she realized it, "Of course not! But… what's that monkey doing here? And for that matter, what are you doing here, and why?"

Horace straightened up proudly and said, beaming, "I'm here to tell you how the mutates can be cured! And Perkins is here to illustrate that the process is successful!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After the general pandemonium died down, Dr. Morgenstern opened the larger case he'd brought with him. It turned out to be a compact projector that ran on batteries, and he set it up and began flashing images against a wall. "Ah, here we have my research facility upstate. Lovely landscaping, don't you think? Never mind, I know that's not what you're interested in. This is myself and my two lab assistants, Honeywell and Berker; Berker is the one with the red hair. Now, here we have a composite picture of several test monkeys, taken six months ago; that's Perkins there on the lower right. And… Here we are, a week later, after they had been treated with Dr. Sevarius' mutagen."

There were several gasps of horror at the image now being flashed on the wall. Instead of nine cute little monkeys, they now saw nine winged monsters, grown considerably in size and with felinoid features that mixed poorly with their simian background. Elisa found herself thinking bizarrely that if the winged monkeys of Oz had actually looked like this, no wonder everyone had feared them.

"Ah, don't despair, because… here, let's just skip past all these intermediate stages, and… here is Perkins and his little friend Quinn, just one week ago!" The screen showed two normal little monkeys again. "As you can see, they're completely back to normal, and they've shown no lingering effects from their mutation and its reversal. Well, actually, I think Quinn really misses his wings; he does keep trying to fly around his pen. But Perkins, here, is perfectly fine! Aren't you, my little pen-thief?" He crooned to Perkins, who was indeed holding a pen that Elisa could have sworn had been in the doctor's pocket a few minutes ago. Perkins chattered peevishly at him, probably complaining that he preferred fountain pens to ballpoint.

"You… you were able to change them back to normal?" Maggie's eyes were wide with hope. So were Derek's.

"Yes, indeed! You see, we took DNA samples, and…." There followed at least five minutes of scientific jargon that lost nearly everybody in the room after about five seconds.

Xanatos finally interceded, saying wryly that everyone got the general idea, that they were able to change the monkeys back to normal. Derek asked, "You started with nine mutated monkeys, but you only showed us two successfully changed back. What happened to the other seven?"

Horace lost his proud smile, and coughed a bit. "Well, you must understand, every successful experiment is usually preceded by several failures. Five of the monkeys are still mutated to some degree, and two were reverted, but died from the shock and strain of the reversal process. But we successfully brought the last two, Perkins and Quinn, through reversal with no ill effects; the key is sedating them through the worst of the reversal process, just as you'd sedate anyone undergoing major surgery so they won't die from the traumatic shock. And we firmly believe that we can reverse your mutation as well, and restore you to full humanity, alive and well!"

Xanatos turned to the rest of the assembled crowd with a grin. "So, how soon can the lot of you come upstate and get changed back to normal again?"

"Right now!" Derek said, jumping out of his chair. Elisa hugged him hard, thrilled beyond words at the prospect of having her baby brother back to normal again. Off to one side, Peter and Diane Maza were hugging each other, their eyes shining with tears of joy. On the other side of the room, Claw and Dana were sitting and looking deep into each other's eyes, Claws' wings quivering with emotion. Derek hugged Maggie, saying excitedly, "We'll be human again, and I can take you out to fancy restaurants and movies, and… Sweets, what's wrong?" he asked worriedly when he saw Maggie's face, looking worried instead of joyful.

Maggie turned to the doctor and asked quietly, "What will this do to the baby?"

The delighted grin on everyone else's face faded, and Xanatos demanded, "Baby? What baby?"

"I'm pregnant," Maggie said quietly. "About six weeks now, I think. What will this reversal process do to the baby?"

"Oh, dear." Dr. Morgenstern's face was sad and worried. "As I've said, the reversal process is very traumatic, possibly even more taxing on the body than the original mutation was. A pregnant female under such stress… the likely result would be a spontaneous abortion; a miscarriage. My dear, you will probably lose your child."

Maggie clasped her hands protectively over her abdomen. "No!"

Derek wrapped his arms around her from behind, his face troubled as he placed his hands over hers, over their unborn child. "But can't you, I don't know, just sedate her a little more to lessen the trauma?"

"Sedation too heavy would damage the fetus as well," Horace said heavily. "I am sorry."

"Well, then… we'll just hold off reversing for a few months, until the baby's born, then change you all back together!" Xanatos said as he forced a grin again. It didn't last, when he saw Horace shaking his head again. "What did I miss, doc?"

Horace said sadly, "I'll be able to reverse the process for the ones originally mutated from human, yes, but that's only because we have the DNA samples that were taken from each of you before your mutation." Derek started to say that Sevarius had never taken any samples from him, but then he remembered the DNA testing he'd had for identification purposes, along with fingerprinting, back when he'd first joined the police academy. He had no doubt at all that Xanatos would be able to get his hands on such confidential material without even blinking. "I thought I'd made it clear, the reversal is actually a re-mutation to the original DNA, introduced back into the body during the process. Your baby… will have never been a 'baseline human', and will have no DNA samples on record for tailoring the reversal process to."

"Well… can you take the original samples from Derek and Maggie, combine them, and come up with a probable DNA map for a child of theirs that you can use?" Xanatos asked desperately; he seemed almost as distressed as Derek and Maggie were.

"Mmmm…. Possibly. I can, hm, combine the genes in, say, a few thousand different ways, then take a sample from the baby once it's born, and see which DNA map is most compatible with the human genes already in its makeup. That just might work!" Horace said with growing excitement. "I'll need access to a Cray computer system or better, for computing the different DNA maps, but…"

"You'll have a new Cray sitting on your doorstep by Tuesday," Xanatos promised. "How long will it take to make the different DNA maps with the Cray helping out?"

"Oh, it'll speed things up by fifty-fold! I should have a close-enough match to the child's DNA in only five or six years!"

Everyone's faces fell again. Xanatos said slowly, "Five or six…years?"

Horace looked distressed again. "Mr. Xanatos, as of this date _(late 1996—ye author)_, science has yet to successfully map out the complete human genome! Mapping out this individual child's genes will take time, and finding a close-enough match for his or her human DNA among the thousands of possible combinations will take even more time! But I assure you, I will give it my top priority! And I may luck onto the perfect combination in less than five years, but I can not guarantee it."

"Then… I'll wait." Maggie's ears were still laid back in distress, but she stood straight and nodded decisively. "When you can make my baby human again, too, then I'll go through the reversal, but not a day sooner."

Elisa thought of a 'missing persons' folder still sitting in a file cabinet back at the precinct, a case still unsolved so long as Maggie Reed was still officially listed as missing, and said tentatively, "Maggie, five years is a long time…"

"I'll wait!" Maggie snapped. "I won't have my baby growing up thinking it's all alone, the only one that's different! When you're able to make him or her human, then we'll be humans together. But until then, we'll be freaks together!" She stood proudly as she said it and tossed her mane in defiance, and if Brooklyn had been standing there at that moment, he would have sworn up and down that she had never looked more magnificent.

"And I'll wait, too," Derek said decisively as he embraced her again. "Mom, Dad, Sis, I'm sorry to make you wait a few years longer before the dragging me to the next family reunion, but I'm staying with Maggie and my kid."

Diane's eyes were filled with tears again, but Peter nodded slowly as he said, "As a father should. I'm proud of you, Derek."

"Thanks, Dad." Derek then looked over to where Claw was sitting with Dana, and said, "But that doesn't mean you have to wait around that long, Claw. You go have a normal life again, okay?"

But Claw shook his head decisively, and signed a few words to him. Dana grinned beside him, and began signing as well. Xanatos eyed them curiously, then muttered to Owen, "Don't suppose you know what they're saying?"

"Actually, I do, sir," Owen said flatly as he adjusted his glasses. "Claw told Derek and Maggie that he'll wait with them, and be an uncle to their child while waiting. And the young woman beside him is saying that she doesn't mind the wait at all, as she loves Claw just the way he is."

"Do tell!" Xanatos stared at her for a moment, then turned to Elisa and asked a bit amusedly, "A relative of yours?"

Elisa knew he was indirectly referring to her relationship with Goliath, and her eyes flashed with anger as she retorted, "Not that I know of; she just knows how to judge a person by more than their looks and the size of their portfolios. If more people thought like her, you'd still be behind bars!"

Xanatos' eyes flashed with a mix of pain, regret and exasperation, but before he could say anything more, someone knocked on the door to the room. Derek opened it to find another resident of the Labyrinth waiting there. "Begging your pardon, Mr. Talon, but Fang has heard that Mr. Xanatos is here, and he's howling up a storm about how he wants to see him right away."

Derek looked questioningly at Xanatos, who shrugged right back at him, so together they went down to the infirmary where Fang was currently staying. Xanatos took one look at Fang's battered and bandaged form, with a cast on one arm and both wings splinted, and whistled. "What happened to him?"

"Claw happened," Derek informed him. "He made the bad mistake of trying to take Dana as a hostage, the last time he busted out of his cell."

"Do tell," Xanatos said again, his eyes wide. "And here I had pegged Claw as the 'scaredy-cat' of the bunch."

"So did we, until Fang threatened his woman," Derek said wryly.

"Yeah, and I've learned my lesson, but I still want out of here!" Fang complained from his sickbed. "Xanatos, you gotta bust me out of this place! I'll come work for you, or whatever, but I'm sick and tired of being cooped up down here! Even being an ordinary Joe Schmoe and a bus driver again would be better than this!"

Xanatos and Derek eyed each other in surprise; before, Fang had always been the one to say he wasn't interested in a cure. Now, he was the only one willing to undergo one on the spot! Derek muttered, "How's that for irony?"

"It's what makes the world go 'round," Xanatos agreed, before turning to Fang with a grin. "Pal, have I got a deal for you…"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Later, after having arranged for a private ambulance to pick Fang up at a secluded entrance to the Labyrinth and take him to the laboratory upstate, Xanatos, Owen and Dr. Morgenstern started heading for the streets of Manhattan above. Horace Morgenstern had almost a spring in his step, as he contemplated both the swift reversal of Fang's mutation and the long process of reversing the mutation on a child that was born a mutate; the only thing he liked more than successfully solving a puzzle was the challenge of starting on a different one. Owen, of course, simply walked along ramrod-stiff, as per usual, but Xanatos was slumping his shoulders and idly kicking at stray bits of debris as they went. "A day late and a dollar short," he sighed. "If only the cure had been perfected a few weeks sooner, then we could have taken them upstate for the cure already, and Derek and Maggie would be back in street clothes by now."

Dr. Morgenstern looked distressed, and started protesting that he'd been working as fast as he could and still be sure of a cure that wouldn't kill, but Xanatos waved his explanation away with a weary gesture. "I know, I know, you did all you could and I'm grateful for it. But I hate not being able to see all my mistakes fixed, all the rotten things I did undone and made right again."

"The doctor seems quite positive that he'll be able to cure their child eventually," Owen reminded him, but then had to add, "assuming, of course, that it survives that long."

Xanatos made a face at him. "Thank you, Johnny Sunshine. At least you didn't say that in front of the parents-to-be. What'll I do if their kid's so badly deformed it can't survive on its own?" He sighed. "I just… this is one of the scummiest things I was involved in, one that I can just see Alexander looking at me in disgust for, years from now. I just want to be able to look Alexander right in the eye on that day, and tell him, 'Yes, I did some rotten things on my way to the top, but I made them all right again!' But if their baby dies from its mutation…"

"If it does, Derek and my parents will probably hate you for the rest of their lives," came a voice from up ahead of them. Startled, Xanatos looked up to see Elisa leaning against a wall ahead. "But you know, I'm actually beginning to think that you have changed from your bad old days."

"I have! I swear!" he said fervently.

"You want me to believe you? Then you can start by helping out down here, spreading around a little of that cash in your bank accounts. While Derek's waiting for you to cure his kid, he and a lot of people down here are living like war refugees! One of the reasons why you weren't invited to stay for dinner is because they're serving rat stew tonight."

"You're serious? Of course you're serious. Owen, when we get back, I want you to--"

Owen was already whipping out his cell phone. "I'm calling the catering service now, sir."

"Better make it the local Domino's, and every outlet in Manhattan. What do you think, detective, would five dozen pizzas be enough for tonight?"

Elisa blinked, then said amusedly, "Better make it six dozen; they've got gargoyle mouths to feed down here too. But what about tomorrow, and the day after?"

"For short term, we can open up a soup kitchen on the upper levels, and it'll be more than soup and sandwiches once I can get the right equipment in here," Xanatos said as he stroked his beard in thought. "For long term, let me think about it for a while. For right now, would you mind hanging around with us to accept the pizzas when they arrive at the entrance? It'll take all four of us to carry six dozen pizzas back down."

THE END

(of this chapter, that is. But the story itself is far from over…)


	4. Guests and Pasts (restricted version)

**LIFE GOES ON**

**_Revelations of the Labyrinth, Part 4: Guests and Pasts _**

By Kimberly T.

(Author's note: this chapter is FOR MATURE READERS ONLY! If you are under 18, PLEASE skip to the next chapter, which is this same one but cleaned up a little for the underage reader. Okay?)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Patrol had been slow so far tonight; only one assault tonight, foiled swiftly and easily, and the lady they'd saved hadn't screamed and ran, either. Though that was largely due to Broadway's sincere efforts at both 'damage control' and appeasing his patrol partner, since Angela had been ready to gut the would-be rapist on the spot. But he'd convinced her to be satisfied with simply knocking him unconscious, though so thoroughly he privately doubted the creep would wake up any time soon.

Angela had then helped the would-be victim recover her clothes and a little of her dignity, while Broadway considerately turned his back and spread his wings for an impromptu screen. Then he'd asked the woman very nicely, while twisting a metal trash can handle into an impromptu pair of handcuffs, if she'd mind making sure the criminal stayed put until the police showed up with bolt-cutters, and gave them her statement. (Elisa had told them that the patrol officers of her precinct, at least, had taken to very quietly adding bolt-cutters to the other supplies carried in their trunks, after finding several criminals mysteriously tied in this fashion.) Now, as they sat on a rooftop at Cloisters together, Broadway looked at Angela with more than a little concern in his eyes. "Angela, what was the deal with that crook back there, anyway? You almost scared _me_, with the way you went after him; I thought for a minute there that you were going to turn him into cat food for Cagney."

"I was tempted," Angela said shortly. She pointedly ruffled her wings as she looked away, into the courtyard below; she really didn't want to talk about it just then. She wasn't sure he'd understand if she did try to explain it; he was a male, and he hadn't grown up with her and her rookery sisters on Avalon. She wished he hadn't brought the subject up again, because she'd suggested the break here at Cloisters just to cool her boiling blood down afterwards.

She knew the rest of the clan avoided this place when they could, and strongly suspected that her mother had something to do with the reason why, but she refused to let that spoil her enjoyment of its quiet beauty, almost like a tiny corner of Avalon. Just coming to perch here on the rooftop had started to calm her, but then Broadway had to open his mouth… She sighed as she looked down into the courtyard, mentally reciting the conjugation of some irregular verbs in Latin, just as the Magus used to do under his breath when he was becoming exasperated with an unruly hatchling at lessons.

The Magus, dead after fighting the Weird Sisters to save their clan… She wished now that she'd given him the bookmark she'd embroidered for him, under the princess' tutelage, the same night that she'd finished it. But she'd been saving it for the clan's Hatchday celebration… a celebration that now neither of them would attend. Just before she'd gone down to the beach, to ask Goliath if she could go with him, she'd sneaked back into the Hall of the Sleeping King and laid the bookmark next to his pale still hand. If a Resurrection ever came, as according to that Bible the princess used to tell stories from, the Magus would find it ready and waiting for his use.

Thinking about him cooled her anger to a sad, weary calm again, a pale version of the sort of calm that comes after tears. To her, he'd been gone for several months now, but to her sisters and brothers, it hadn't even been two weeks since his untimely death. Poor Zipporah and Odysseus, his favorite pupils, were probably still perilously close to tears whenever his name was mentioned. The central courtyard of Cloisters was a bit like the center courtyard for the castle on Avalon, and when she half-closed her eyes and looked through her lashes at the central arch, she could almost imagine that she was seeing him there, with his staff in one hand and one of the clan's precious books in the other, waiting for all the hatchlings to settle down so he could begin the night's lessons.

She looked across the courtyard with eyes still half shut, letting sweet memory fill in her vision and whisper old voices in her ears. There was Raphael, sitting at the table playing trenchers with Odysseus, and trying to divert his attention so he could cheat outrageously again, even though he knew they'd catch him at it. Such a jester he always was, the only one who could make Esther laugh, and there she stood behind him, combing out her long blonde hair.

And there were Michael and Menalippe, their tails lovingly entwined as he plaited another love-knot into her mane. And there was Atalanta, playing with her gliding squirrel, and threatening her mate Uriel with decapitation if he tried to feed it to Boudicca again. But Boudicca knew better than to touch an animal with a ribbon around its neck, the way they marked all their pets from their prey, so she just snorted at them as she gnawed on a thighbone from last night's deer.

And there was Deborah, making another basket, and leaning contentedly against Jephthah's leg as he finished stitching together a new quiver for Penthesilea. And there was Penthesilea, checking over her arrows to see if the older ones needed replacing yet, sighting down the shafts and running a thumb-talon along the fletchings.

And there were Gideon and Hippolyta, happily bashing away at each other with their swords and shields again; another one of those spur-of-the-moment fights they were notorious for. And there was Gabriel, coming over to remind them that they'd agreed to do their practice fighting outside…

But he wasn't really there, he was in Avalon and she was here, now, and she wasn't going back there any time soon, maybe not ever, not when there was so much more to see and learn! It was time to think of other things, like the rest of their patrol route. She stood up abruptly, startling Broadway. "Well, let's finish this patrol and head back to the castle!" she said brightly.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Okay," Broadway said agreeably to Angela's sudden suggestion, though he was a bit disappointed. He'd just been about to caress her tail with the tip of his, an invitation to coil them together, and do a little courting while resting here. He'd gotten out of the habit of thinking of this place as 'tainted' by Demona, though he supposed the rest of the clan never would. Especially Brooklyn; he knew Brooklyn never even flew within three blocks of this place if he could avoid it. (Broadway sometimes suspected that a lot more had happened here than Brooklyn had ever told them about, to make him hate Demona even more than Goliath did.) But that was okay with Broadway, if it meant that he could spend time here with Angela; she'd taught him to appreciate the quiet beauty of the place, and now when they patrolled together, they often stopped here.

It was funny, whenever they left here she acted like she was in a real hurry to get somewhere, but she seemed to be even more interested in his attempts at courtship later on in the night. That is, so long as he kept the physical stuff to holding hands and entwining tails; anywhere closer in was still forbidden territory. He thought wryly as they leaped off the roof together that it would be a lot easier to stay away from that spot between her wings, or between her legs, if he didn't already know so well what would happen if he touched them… Boy, those two rookery sibs of Goliath's could make a courtship complicated! Then he told himself sternly to stop thinking about those two and what they'd done, before he had a tent in his loincloth again…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It had been less than a month ago, when Goliath--or at least, they thought then that it had been Goliath--had brought Coldstone to the clocktower. He'd told them he had a plan to draw out the three spirits that dwelt within Coldstone, separate and drive away forever the evil one that was causing so much torment for the lovers trapped within, and needed volunteers to provide "temporary housing" for the lovers' spirits. Angela had volunteered immediately, with Broadway a close second, and Brooklyn, though he seemed a shade uneasy about it, had volunteered as well. (At the time, they'd thought his offer had been unnecessary; looking back, Broadway sometimes wondered what would have happened if Brooklyn had kept his mouth shut.) And only a short while later, Broadway and Angela had found themselves as mere passengers in their own bodies, with two spirits who had long been denied fleshly pleasures firmly in control.

Goliath had done a lot more reading in the last two years than the rest of the clan put together, and he'd remarked once that his not-quite-deceased rookery brothers and sister had reminded him of three characters in a play by Shakespeare; Othello, Desdemona and Iago. Broadway had read that play last week while looking for some more poetry to read to Angela, and he had to admit the descriptions sort-of fit, from what he'd glimpsed of his spirit-guest's memories while they'd shared a body. "Othello" was a dour soul with a jealous streak even wider than the average gargoyle's, but he really did love his mate "Desdemona" clear to the bone, deeply and passionately. Very, very passionately. As "Othello" had made very clear, when he and his beloved could actually touch each other again.

Not knowing that their 'hosts' were still aware of what their 'guests' were doing inside their bodies, they had gone off to feel the wind beneath their wings again. And Brooklyn, who was unknown to them possessed by "Iago", had slyly suggested that they take their sweet time in returning to be sucked back into Coldstone's form. That unfeeling prison where, even if they were together and no longer tormented by their evil brother, they could not truly touch each other. "Othello" and "Desdemona" had known that the right thing to do was to go back; after all, these bodies had spirits of their own that would no doubt like to get back to the business of running them. But still, surely they wouldn't be begrudged just this one night…

"The lavender isn't as wondrous a color as your amber magnificence, my love," Othello had said with Broadway's voice as he'd caressed the strut of Angela's wing, "but the skin feels just as delightfully warm to touch…"

"Mmmm…" Desdemona purred with Angela's voice as she'd leaned into his hand. "And as delightful to be touched, my love. Oh, more of that… Oh, and this body of yours, how do you find it?" as she lightly ran her hand up his tail.

"Much--ah, do that again! Heavier than I'm used to, but…"

"But right now, that just means there's more of you to feel!" Desdemona had teased as she squeezed one of his ample buttocks.

"Not at all a bad thing!" Othello had agreed with a gasp. "By the Dragon, beloved, it's been far, far too long!" as he spun around and crushed her to him.

She grabbed him back just as hard, caressing feverishly everywhere she could reach, and in no time flat their clothes were cast heedlessly aside as he bore her down to the concrete, delighting even in that cool hardness against his knee spurs. But as he spread her legs, she gasped out, "Stop!"

"Stop! For what!" he'd almost roared out, already hard with need.

"These aren't our bodies, and I can tell this one has never mated before!" she said with a groan as she firmly scissored her legs together again.

"So! Their spirits are sleeping now, and it's not like it's the Breeding Moon; what they don't know about won't hurt them!" even as he let her push him off of her.

She sighed. "Believe me, beloved, they'll know! A female can really feel it, after being filled for the very first time; it's almost like the first time you glide. So wonderful, but your wings were sore afterwards, remember?"

"Not really, since it was over a millennium ago," he growled. "But I see your point." He growled in frustration again as he reached for his loincloth, then eyed Angela's lovely lavender back as she rolled over and reached for her tunic. And he grinned wide as he said, "So, we can't complete each other in quite the way we both desire… But tell me, beloved, will she feel it later if I rub here?" as he lightly ran a hand down her back between the wings.

"Oh!" she gasped as she arched into his touch. "N-no, that won't leave a trace afterwards, I'm sure… Ohhh…."

He glanced quickly at his body's tail-tip, hoping it didn't end in a spiked tip like some gargoyles' did, and found it completely smooth, not even a hard knob for clubbing at the end. For a moment he was disappointed in the lack of a knob, then brightened as he realized that for this time, this was even better! Still rubbing her back, he diverted enough concentration to learn how to get the very tip of it vibrating. Oh, this would be far better! "Beloved, do you remember what we did for pleasure when you were large and heavy with egg? Would _that _leave any traces behind?"

"Oooh!" she gasped, instantly aquiver. "Oooh, but your knob might…"

"What knob?" as he showed her his body's tail, then set it to vibrating again.

"Oh, _yes_! Oh, yes, beloved, do it all, please!" she begged as she kneeled with her back to him, legs spread wide, and quivering with excitement.

So he kneeled behind her, reaching around her to cup her firm breasts in his hands and tease her nipples. Then he lowered his head to lovingly lick between her wings, as she gasped and moaned with pleasure. Then he slipped his tail between her legs, to that sweet opening between them, lightly wriggling just the tip inside as she squirmed and howled for him. Then he set the tip to vibrating… She nearly deafened him with her screams of ecstasy, and collapsed against him afterwards, sobbing with joy. "Ohhh, that was so wonderful!"

"I'm glad it pleased you so, beloved. It always pleases me, to give you pleasure. But it would please me far more if you would ease this," as he guided her hand to his shaft, hard and aching with need, "before this body explodes!"

"Oh, now an explosion would definitely be felt later!" she teased, even as she spat on her hands to moisten them. And with hands and mouth, she lovingly caressed his stiff member and the soft sacs behind it, and brought him swiftly to a roaring, glorious climax.

Then they lay contentedly together for a while, basking in the knowledge that they'd given and received near-ultimate pleasure. But after a short while, those idly soft caresses and whispers became a little less idle and more intent… They took it slower this time, and still didn't actually mate their borrowed bodies together, but their orgasms were no less intense for the lack. Afterwards, they reluctantly went back to join the others, sure that this wondrous sating of their passions would be forever their secret, to be treasured between them when they were trapped inside cold metal again. They were entirely unaware that the spirits their bodies truly belonged to had been utterly, helplessly aware of every moment, and had just received more education about their own bodies, bodies of the opposite sex and sexual pleasures than they'd previously known existed…

Afterwards, when Coldstone and the newly embodied Coldfire had thanked them for the loan of their flesh, Angela and Broadway had simply said, "It was our pleasure." And the two metallic gargoyles had bolted out of there like cats with their tails on fire. Broadway had wondered how much of that was in trying to catch up to Coldsteel before he wreaked havoc in his new body, and how much of it was in retroactive embarrassment at what they'd done. But heck, he couldn't really blame them, after being stuck in a world without sensation for so long. No touching, no scent, no taste… If he'd been in Coldstone's body, he probably would have gone completely bonkers with delight at a chance to get out and really live again.

He and Angela had reluctantly discussed it afterwards, sitting on opposite sides of a rooftop and carefully not looking at each other. Well, she didn't look, but he couldn't help peeking at her a time or two, remembering what her body had looked like under her tunic, and how she'd felt under his caressing hands… Finally, he cleared his throat and said, "So, that wasn't really us doing that; it was… like watching a movie, almost, but with us as the characters on screen, too." Yeah, a porno flick, part of his mind said wryly. Like that one he'd caught Goliath watching on the sly one night…

"No, it wasn't really us," Angela had agreed, still without looking at him.

"And since it wasn't us doing that, then as far as I'm concerned, it never happened," he said firmly. "And it shouldn't affect our relationship, well, whatever relationship we've got right now, and whatever we're heading for, right? I mean, I like you a lot, Angela. But I'm worried that what _they_ did will make us so uncomfortable around each other that we can't even be friends anymore!"

He'd been racking his brains for hours, thinking of the best to say it, and he figured that he'd gotten it right when she turned to look at him at last. "Oh, Broadway, that's exactly it! I'm so glad you understand! But you're right, it should be that as far as we're concerned, it didn't really happen; we can't let it ruin whatever's meant to be between us, whether we're to be just friends, or…" she blushed, and let it die unfinished, but she didn't have to finish it.

So, they'd agreed on a few ground rules. Holding hands was okay, friendly hugs were okay, even twining tails was okay, but no more than that, with him or with the others (he was very careful to work that in there), until she made her choice as to who she wanted for a mate. And so, they went back to the clocktower, and things were just settling back to normal when the Hunters had come to town. But he still remembered what it had been like to bring Angela's body to the peak of ecstasy, and he _definitely_ remembered what it had been like for her to do the same for him.

In a way, he was kind-of glad it had happened, because back when he and his rookery brothers had no names or need of them, it had been his brother with the red skin, beak and horns who'd been popular with their rookery sisters. He figured that, without that memory of his body giving hers such pleasure, Angela might have started leaning towards Brooklyn, the second-in-command who'd always been popular. But with that memory, she was able to consider him as a serious suitor… and his poetry, thoughtfulness and cooking were, he hoped, slowly winning her over. Perhaps someday he'd be able to call her his Angel of the Night, his beloved mate… But if he rushed towards that goal like he wanted to, she'd think the wrong thing and back away! Yep, those two had sure made a courtship complicated. But considering that they just might have made it possible in the first place, he couldn't complain too much.

He came to himself with a start, realizing that even though he'd told himself not to think about it, he'd spent at least ten minutes thinking about it, because here he was several blocks from the Cloisters with no memory of how he got there, sleep-winging his way through a patrol! He was lucky he hadn't blundered into a skyscraper, or worse yet, a Quarryman. If Goliath ever found out, he'd be in major trouble. But even on autopilot, he'd managed to keep up with Angela; maybe she hadn't noticed. He began frantically scanning the landscape around them, searching for anything unusual to point out and save face by at least a good pretense that he'd been busy with patrol matters. And lo and behold, he found something unusual, all right! "Look, Angela! Over by the docks, between those warehouses, do you see them?"

Angela turned to look, and said excitedly, "Yes, I do! A bird-winged gargoyle, and a human passenger!"

"Bet they're Griff and King Arthur. I think they're coming from the direction of the clocktower; they must have been looking for us!" as they wheeled and changed course.

A few minutes later, they were hallooing Griff and King Arthur, who had evidently traded in his regally medieval clothing for more modern wear, blue jeans and a black shirt under a red jacket. (Angela thought amusedly that it looked like Elisa had made quite an impression on him.) "What ho, chaps!" Griff roared happily. "Ah, Angela, so you and Goliath made it home at last, eh?"

"A few months ago!" Angela said happily as she and Broadway fell into escort positions beside the pair from Great Britain. "And the guys told us how you two ended up together! So, should I call you Sir Griff now?"

"Ah, just good ol' Griff is fine between friends! I say, we just came from looking for you at your clocktower, and we were becoming rather worried about you! A bit harsh for a redecorating job, eh what?"

"Yeah, you could say that!" Broadway agreed wryly. "It's a long story, but we can tell you about it when we get to our new home--well, actually it's our old home, but that's an even longer story--anyway, follow us to that castle up there!" as he pointed at Castle Wyvern, standing out above the other skyscrapers of Manhattan as it perched atop the Aerie Building.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In the heart of the castle, Goliath silently marveled at the sight in front of him; Elisa and Xanatos, together in his office, and neither of them so much as snapping at each other. Even just last week, he wouldn't have believed it if even the Magus himself had come back to life and prophesied it, despite the fact that they had a mutual enemy now. But since then they'd found out that Xanatos' scientists had managed to come up with a cure for the mutates, even if only Fang had taken it so far. And now, in addition to his usual corporate work, Xanatos was working to better the lives of the Labyrinth residents. He seemed to be taking it on as a personal project, too, rather than just throwing money and hired experts at it; last night, Broadway had found himself advising a note-taking Xanatos on the sort of equipment one would want for a kitchen feeding large quantities of people, without needing a trained staff down there as well to handle them. (Fortunately, Broadway had already given the subject some thought during the few times he'd been down in the Labyrinth, passing on his many creative recipes for rat.)

In the three days since the revelation, Elisa seems to have grudgingly admitted that it might just be barely possible that the man had changed just slightly since the birth of his son, though she was a long way from considering him a reliable ally, let alone a friend. But when it came to the Quarrymen, Elisa was more than ready to listen to any suggestions he had; those people were just too dangerous. They'd had too many close calls already; the next encounter might easily result in a clan member's death.

"If we could just get that Castaway character's fingerprints, and run them through the national databases!" Elisa grouched as she slumped in her chair. "He's just too slick not to have a shady past lurking out there. But nothing he and his organization have done so far have broken any laws against humans, or where there were human witnesses present, so we've got nothing to book him on!" She didn't even bother to mention that she herself had been nearly killed by the Quarrymen; the only witness had been Goliath, and since it had interrupted what was to have been their first real date… Not a snowball's chance in Hell of getting anywhere with that one, without getting themselves in even worse trouble.

Xanatos drummed his fingers on the table and looked glumly at Goliath as he speculated, "Maybe I should just invite some environmentalists up here, to have you guys declared an endangered species. That would get you at least _some_ legal protection… But even if they cut through all the red tape to get it done before the next millennium, you'd probably end up being shipped back to Scotland as your native environment, or I'd have to turn the castle into a wetlands preservation project or something."

Elisa snorted in reluctant amusement. "Or something. Even Matt agrees that getting Washington involved would be a mistake right now, and he's former FBI. All right, I'm desperate. This isn't a police detective talking anymore, this is a desperate woman talking, so listen up. What kind of dirty tricks have you still got stuffed away up your sleeves that could be used against these creeps?"

"Why, Miss Maza, are you referring to dastardly doings like industrial espionage, sabotage, and fiendish plots like that? _Moi_?" as Xanatos laid a dramatic hand on his chest and fluttered his eyelashes at her. Almost despite themselves, both Goliath and Elisa chuckled. "Actually, I'm already at work on that. I've got two trusted employees going to the next Quarryman rally with orders to bring back, ah… You're quite sure this is off the record?"

"Tell you what, you can tell Goliath, then he can decide whether or not you can tell me. Go right ahead," and Elisa put her hands over her ears, closed her eyes and began singing in an off-key voice, "_Fa la la la la, la la la la_! Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light…"

That did it; everybody burst out with semi-hysterical laughter. Owen Burnett quirked an eyebrow at them as he brought in another tray of coffee and tea for them all, the faint but unmistakable sounds of an upset baby echoing in behind him. He said in his usual expressionless voice, "Unrestrained and inappropriate laughter is a common sign of fatigue, sir."

"Too many days of too little sleep," Xanatos agreed as he wiped the tears from his eyes with one hand and accepted a cup of coffee with the other. "If it ain't Alex's teething and the offices overseas, it's the Quarrymen and the Labyrinth. I should have cloned another me instead of you," he said blearily to a startled Goliath. "That way, at least one of me would get some sleep."

"Why don'cha have the fairy here zap Alex's teething troubles away?" Elisa said as she waggled a finger in Owen's direction. She was just as tired, not from dealing with a cranky baby but from spending a lot of her normal sleeping hours with her mother, making plans and wedding attire for the Labyrinth double wedding coming up in a few days.

Owen sighed very loudly; Goliath would have bet large sums of money, if he'd had any, that this was not the first time the question had been asked. "Because Oberon's binding spell on Puck constrains me to use magic only for the purpose of either protecting the boy or training him, in lessons he is ready to learn. Alex is in no danger from his own teeth coming in, and he is quite frankly too young to learn the appropriate spells for regulating his own body." For just a moment, the perfectly emotionless exterior slipped, and a trace of Puck showed through as he finished, "Or believe me, he'd have gone through teething in twelve minutes or less!"

Goliath drained the cup of tea that had just been handed to him, then got to his feet. "I believe that nearly everyone in this room is in need of sleep, and that we'll get no further in our efforts tonight. Come, Elisa, and I'll take you home. And I'll call Lexington in early from patrol, to take over tending Alex; he has much experience with teething infants, from his nights as an assistant in the old rookery. If you'll leave Alex in our quarters and in his hands, Xanatos, you and Fox can also get some rest."

"Fox'll go for that," Xanatos agreed as he rubbed at his eyes. "She told me earlier that she'd rather fight another bush war in Africa than go through another week of this."

Just then, a high-pitched beeping came from one wall of the office, and a large section of paneling slid away to reveal a bank of monitors, two of which automatically flickered to life as they stared at them. "Oh, no," Xanatos moaned. "Please, not a direct attack tonight!"

But as the monitor screens for the east-facing security cameras focused on the unknown intruders that had caused the proximity alert, Goliath's face split in a wide grin. "Not Quarrymen at all, but friends! Griff, and King Arthur!"

"A griffin and King Arthur. Right. Owen, put me to bed, because I'm obviously in Slumberland already."

"Actually, you might want to stay awake for this," Elisa said with a twinkle in her eye. "Griff is a gargoyle from the London clan, and that man on his back is the real, honest, straight-from-Camelot-via-Avalon King Arthur."

Xanatos blinked at her, then turned back to Owen and ordered, "More coffee. And tea, and break out the best china."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

By the time the remaining clan members had been called in from patrol, King Arthur and Griff had been royally welcomed to the clan's home, and been supplied with tea and other refreshments. Xanatos and Fox had come out together, leaving Owen with Alex, long enough to greet their guest and invite him to make use of a guest room that had been already prepared (Xanatos always kept one ready for Elisa these days, just in case the Quarrymen found her apartment again.)

After seeing their guests made comfortable, the tired parents had regretfully excused themselves to get some desperately needed sleep, down in the castle's dungeons. (Not that Fox was feeling kinky that night, as she explained to David while they went down, but it was the only place in the castle that she was sure was far enough away that they wouldn't be woken up by Alex's cries.) Only moments after coming back from patrol and greeting King Arthur and Griff, Lexington found himself summarily pressed into service as a nanny, with instructions to keep the boy as quiet as possible for as long as he could. Owen further told Lex to wake him up to take over Alex's care only five minutes before either dawn or the Apocalypse, whichever came first. Both King Arthur and Griff had nodded knowingly, as soon as they'd heard the muffled sounds of Alex's cries coming from the nursery as Lexington went inside. "Teething, is he?" Griff remarked. "I always made sure I was on London duty when that happened in the rookery."

"Hey, where's Bronx?" as Brooklyn looked around for him. "I haven't seen him all night."

"If he's not hiding up on the highest parapet, then Fox and Xanatos will probably find him tucked under their bed downstairs," Hudson remarked as he poured himself another cup of tea. "Even watchbeasts have their limits, and the wee prince's constant fussing has worn even him out of late."

"One of the burdens of raising a child, that occasionally threatens to overshadow the many joys," King Arthur said sagely, and a bit sadly. He and Guinevere had never personally known those joys or burdens, though they'd kept right on trying until… He shook away sad memories of a wife and kingdom lost centuries ago, as he sat back and sipped his tea.

"Oh, by the way, Una and Leo asked me to say hello to you for them," Griff said to Goliath and Elisa. "And Una said to tell you specifically that she's been doing some digging, but has yet to come across what you're looking for, whatever that is."

Goliath looked inquiringly at Elisa, who colored slightly as she said, "I'll explain later." Privately, she sighed and thought that she should have known better than to get her hopes up for even an instant, when she'd seen Griff coming in for a landing. Just before leaving London, Elisa had been marveling over the hundreds of mystical items in their shop, and had oh-so-casually asked Una if she had ever come across a magical charm that could turn a human into a gargoyle temporarily, like Puck had done with Titania's Mirror once, but on a voluntary basis. Una had smiled at her knowingly, and said she'd look into it… To keep Goliath from probing further just then, she decided to change the subject, to something that she'd been wondering about anyway. "Say, Griff, I've been meaning to ask you something; do you have any idea why your clan, and pretty much only your clan, has feathered wings?"

Griff harrumphed and rubbed his beak for a moment. "Actually, I do. It's a bit embarrassing, really, but I suppose there's no harm in telling you."

Elisa hastily raised her hand to forestall him. "I don't want to embarrass you; I was just curious."

"Actually, so am I," Angela spoke up with an interested expression. "But I don't see what could be embarrassing about having such beautiful wings…"

Griff straightened up a bit and almost preened one of those beautiful wings, proof that he wasn't above taking a compliment from a pretty female, while Broadway looked a little upset for a moment. "Well, this is the story as I was told it by my old rookery keepers, and in a way it relates to why King Arthur and I are here in New York again," as he nodded to his liege lord. "Up until the seventh century AD, my clan looked much like any other gargoyle clan, with the leathery wings in various shapes and with heads more closely resembling human heads. And we had a good relationship with one of the human clans living near what's now London; mutual protection pact, hunting partners, that sort of thing. But when Christianity began really digging in and taking hold in England, we rapidly found ourselves being persecuted by many of the priests of the new religion. It seems that gargoyles in their natural state resemble their ideas of demons and devils, and so they began accusing us of acting like their demons as well as looking like them."

"We've had more than a taste of that ourselves," Goliath rumbled as he scowled, thinking of past encounters.

"Right, but we had one advantage over you Scots; a local mage was rather fond of us. The old boy was pure Druid right down to his toes, but he wouldn't raise a hand against the practitioners of the new religion; he believed in letting everyone have their say, even if he thought they were daft as snake shoes." Arthur gave his knight a raised eyebrow, silently reminding him that his liege lord was a professed Christian, but Griff just grinned unrepentantly and went on. "He just stood by and said and did nothing, until one day while he was harvesting mistletoe, he came upon a party of human warriors, led by a Christian priest and all armed with hammers, picks and whatever tools they could find. He had a feeling they were up to no good, so he followed them at a distance, and it's a jolly good thing he did, because he caught up to them just as they were laying waste to my ancestors while they slept."

Everyone gasped in horror as Griff went on, "They killed some of the warriors, those who'd been posted on the easily accessible ledges, but didn't have a chance to climb down the cliffs and get into the rookery or at the rest of the adults before the mage decided enough was enough. He summoned eagles and hunting hawks, and drove the humans away from the cliffs, with a lightning bolt or two to singe their tails once they were at a safe distance. Then he stayed till sunset, to let my ancestors know what had happened to their best warriors."

"When the clan awoke and learned what had happened, there was a great deal of grief and a great outcry for vengeance, of course, but the mage persuaded the clan's leader that to visit the same destruction on the human village would only lead to even more humans hating them, instead of a few misguided fools. Then the clan's second-in-command, who had been reportedly very fond of the humans and had even listened in on some of their clan gatherings, said out loud that the problem was all caused by the new religion that depicted them all as devils instead of angels, ravagers instead of protectors. And a youngster who'd been listening in wondered what an angel was supposed to look like… and decided to find out.

"Now this youngster was a very independent and curious sort, always sneaking off to the human village to see what they were doing, and had made friends with a few of the children there. So he sneaked off to the village that very night, despite the entire clan being in mourning for their comrades and alert for another attack, found one of his little friends, and asked him what an angel was supposed to look like. Luckily for us all, the human boy in question was not too fond of the local priest, because the priest had told him repeatedly that he was bound for hell for stealing apples or somesuch. So he sneaked into the church, stole the priest's own Bible and brought it back to where the youngster was waiting. Now remember, this was centuries before the printing press, and back then each book was made by hand, and often to individual tastes. And it so happened that this particular Bible had only a few pages of artwork done in color. But one of the plates was a depiction of the four Saints of the Gospel: St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John."

Elisa was the first one to catch on, and gave a groaning laugh. "Don't tell me, let me guess. The plate was of the four symbols for the saints: the eagle, the lion, the bull and the man… all with angel's wings."

Griff nodded wryly. "Right on the mark. And of course, that's the page that the youngster took back to the clan, to show to the clan leader and the mage who was still there, and asked the mage if he could make them look like that, so they could be friends with the humans again. The clan leader was desperate to find a solution that would let them keep their home territory without mutual slaughter, and begged the mage to do what the hatchling asked; he said that so long as they could still glide, he didn't give a stone shard what his wings looked like. So the mage cast his spell, using the page from the Bible as a guide, and transformed the entire clan on the spot, even the unhatched eggs in the rookery. By sunrise, they all had angel wings… and most of them, animal heads. And so we've been ever since."

"Once my ancestors were changed, the druid mage saw to it that a few sympathetic locals spread the word that the clan of 'demons' had been driven out of their homes, and a clan of guardian angels had taken roost there instead. And he even persuaded the clan leader to have several of his most trustworthy and tolerant warriors live in the human village, and roost in the local church's steeple and belfry just to prove to the doubtful that they were 'holy angels'. Of course, since the angels evidently had a truly boring home life, they could permit no hatchlings or eggs to be seen by humans, ever; the young were nearly cloistered until they were close to full growth. And before going on patrol, everyone had to master the 'angel look'," and Griff demonstrated by holding his hands together in front, in a prayerful fashion, and looked upwards piously, "and for centuries they had to wear these daft glowing golden plates strapped to their heads (the mage's idea of what a halo was like), and heavy robes that constantly got in the way when they were gliding. All in all, it worked out for the best, though, because we were never hunted or hammered again."

"The clan lived peaceably right in the middle of London, up until the close of the fifteenth century, when a few too many people began to get suspicious about us. That's when the clan pooled all the odd bits of treasure and whatnot that had been collecting about the rookery—you know how hatchlings love to play with pretty shiny things, and so the adults would bring trinkets home for them from time to time—well, that and the melted-down 'halos' came to quite a tidy sum. The one family of humans that knew who we truly were, caretakers of the cathedral we lived in, used the money to buy a title. With the title came some property outside London, with a decent-sized castle that we all moved into, lock, stock and rookery. But the adults still patrol London, a few at a time (and doing it quite a bit more now that I've showed the younger generation how it's done properly, if I may say so myself), and maintain the shop of magical items you met Una and Leo at; the profits from it help to pay the taxes on our castle."

"A most interesting history," Goliath said, as everyone else nodded agreement. "But how precisely does it relate to your reason for being here in Manhattan again?"

"Because we are still questing to find my old tutor, Merlin," King Arthur put in. "And from the description passed down through the centuries, I'm certain that the druid mage who saved Griff's clan and enchanted them into their present state was none other than Merlin himself. It could only have been him who taught that rhyming riddle to the clan's hatchlings, the one that guided me to find Excalibur centuries later."

"And so we're here to have a look at those Scrolls of Merlin being kept in one of the city's museums; Arthur hopes that one of those stories written on the scrolls will hold a clue to Merlin's present whereabouts." Griff chuckled. "A pity nobody thought to mention those scrolls when we were here last time! Macbeth may have provided us with transportation back to London the first time, but we only just heard of those scrolls while we were returning from hunting down a false lead in Spain, and we had more than a bit of bother getting to this side of the Atlantic again."

"Yeah, I guess we should have thought of those," Brooklyn agreed as he rubbed his beak in embarrassment. "What can I say; it had been a busy night!"

"Well, I for one am glad you've returned here," Angela put in with an eager expression. "It's good to see you both again, and we'd love to hear of your travels and everything you've encountered in your quest!"

And so the ancient king and his gargoyle knight sat and talked for well over an hour about their quest for Merlin. Everyone listened intently, but none more so than Angela, who practically hung on their every word. This did not go unnoticed, and Arthur subsequently let Griff do most of the narrating, while he threw in an occasional sentence about encounters he'd had during the day while Griff was asleep. When he wasn't speaking, he was smiling with a trace of amusement at both the gargoyle lass and his knight, who was telling their story with more dash and flair than his best court minstrel back at Camelot could have done.

Goliath was also looking at the two of them, and he was not smiling. Brooklyn and Broadway were both scowling deeper as time went by, and once or twice tried to change the subject of conversation, but Angela hushed them impatiently and urged Griff to keep telling his story. After a while, Arthur got up from his chair and began looking for the 'garderobe', as he still called bathrooms. Goliath said he'd show him where the nearest one was, but as soon as they were out of sight and hearing of the others, he stopped the High King of Briton with one massive hand on his shoulder as he said, "You are _not_ taking my daughter with you on your quest, is that understood?"

Arthur merely smiled at him amusedly. "What's this; you fear I or Griff would compromise her honor?"

"No, I fear you would lead her off to some other part of the world when it's almost time for her to breed! Angela will be rising to breed in the autumn of next year, and she's the only breedable female this clan has; we need the egg she'll lay for the rookery, to ensure our clan continues." He knew that if either Elisa or Angela ever heard him talking so callously, both would refuse to speak to him for at least another full moon, but some things were too important to waste time softening edges and applying pretty gilding with 'politically correct' phrases, and ensuring the clan continued was definitely one of them.

Arthur lost his amused smile and nodded soberly. "I understand. Even if she asks and Griff begs, I'll not allow her along; a pregnant woman has no business questing. But you may have trouble in keeping her at home regardless; I've seen her spirit before, in women of my time who donned trousers and false beards to pass themselves off as squires and knight-errants. Griff no doubt believes it's his own fine features and feats of bravery she's currently enthralled by, but it's hardly him at all; it's the places we've been to in our quest, and the wonders we've seen. Your daughter desires to see more of the world, and if you are not careful, one night you may wake up to find she's gone out to do just that."

Goliath sighed heavily. "I know. By the Dragon, we visited so many places around the world in our quest, we lost count of our stops long before it was over; that should have been enough to satisfy anyone's wanderlust! But Angela…." He sighed again and shook his head.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Much later, Elisa would be terribly embarrassed to find out that she'd fallen asleep in the middle of Griff's recounting of their quest. But the gargoyles merely smiled and Griff lowered his voice a bit, knowing that his kin could still hear him easily, even over Elisa's soft snores as she curled up against Goliath's broad chest. He tenderly enfolded her with a wing and ever-so-gently stroked her hair as he listened to the remainder of Griff's tale, his and Arthur's adventures in Spain just before hearing of the Scrolls of Merlin. "So, two weeks after hopping aboard a freighter out of Liverpool, here we are!" Griff near-whispered with a grin. "And after we've a look at those scrolls, then we'll decide where to go next."

"There's not enough time left for that tonight," Goliath said quietly but with surety as he glanced at the clock on the wall. "By the time we could get you past the museum's security measures and into the vault those scrolls are supposed to be stored in, it would be perilously close to dawn. Tomorrow night, we'll see about aiding you."

Then Broadway spoke up, sounding both eager and embarrassed. "And, um, in return, maybe you could, um… read them to us?"

Goliath colored a bit and coughed into his fist before admitting, "We tried to read them ourselves once, after Macbeth said the scrolls were full of stories instead of spells. But while I can read both English and Latin, I'm not at all conversant in ancient Welsh." The clan had concluded with disappointment that only Macbeth, world traveler over the centuries, would be able to read the scrolls for them, and at the time he was anything but a friend to the clan. And by the time he and they had come to a better understanding, the scrolls were locked up in a museum vault.

"Merlin always did prefer to write in that tongue," Arthur said with a smile and a nod. "But yes, once I've read them myself, I'll be happy to translate them for you. If we can bring along one of those voice-keeping devices-"

"A tape recorder," Griff interjected wryly.

"Then I'll be happy to give Merlin's tales a proper telling," Arthur finished. (And if, in the process, he happened to forget to translate a few of the more embarrassing bits of his exploits, he was sure Merlin would understand.)

Shortly after that, Goliath carefully rearranged Elisa's position, still sleeping in his embrace, and stood up with her in his arms as he said softly to their guests, "If you will excuse me, it's time I took Elisa to bed."

"No offense, Goliath, but I really think she needs to sleep right now," Brooklyn whispered with a grin, then yelped when Goliath's, Broadway's and Angela's tails all slapped him across the beak.

The yelp roused Elisa, who stirred and muttered something incomprehensible. Goliath whispered as he strode out of the room, "Ssshh, beloved; I'm taking you home now. Just rest."

Arthur and Griff were both silent until he'd left their range of hearing. Then Griff said carefully, "From his words, that crack you just made, and the cracks you just got, I take it Elisa is more than just a friend to the clan now?"

"Well, they haven't announced anything yet," Brooklyn said ruefully as he rubbed his aching beak and ignored the others' glares, "But yeah, we're pretty sure. C'mon, guys, it's even more obvious than my beak!"

"Hmm. Remind me before we leave to give you my clan's post address; those two would probably like to strike up a friendship with our clan's historian. We've had a human-gargoyle pairing, ourselves; a male from a generation before mine, Argus, once fell in love with Deirdre Marten, one of the humans caretakers I mentioned."

"How wonderful! Were they happily mated?" Angela asked with shining eyes.

"They were, as I recall, though she died of old age even before Goliath and I met and I was chucked forward half a century. Argus is dead now, too; he passed on less than a week after I arrived in this decade, barely enough time for a hello-and-goodbye. But our current historian's one of his rookery brothers, and he might be willing to share his memories of them; it might help your pair through the rough bits they're going to be facing, if they want to make a real go of it." And for just a moment, Griff looked very sad and very wistful, as he stared off into space. Rather than ask him what memories he was seeing just then, the clan decided to change the subject to something else.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Goliath landed gently on Elisa's balcony, with her still asleep in his arms, there was a single light still burning in the kitchen. He quickly tapped in the disabling code for the alarm with his tail, glad he'd practiced doing that the last time he'd visited, then grunted as he fumbled with that tail underneath one of the potted plants for the key to the door. But by the time he had it out and was trying to maneuver it into the keyhole, the door clicked and opened from the inside. Peter Maza stood there in the doorway, his face expressionless.

"Elisa fell asleep at the castle," Goliath whispered. Even though it was obvious, he felt the need to say something to her father, feeling more than a little on the defensive at the moment. He quickly slid the key back under the potted plant as Peter stepped aside to let them in.

"Diane fell asleep here as well," Peter whispered as he gestured at his wife, currently curled up on the sofa with her shoes off and a blanket draped over her. "I came over to make sure she was all right when she didn't come home on time, but I'd rather she stayed here than went home; she's obsessed with getting everything done in time for the wedding, and she'd probably be coming right back here as soon as she woke up, whether she was really awake enough to drive or not."

"So that's where Elisa got her stubbornness from," Goliath whispered with a small smile as he carried her to the bedroom.

"She gets it from both of us," Peter admitted with a small, rueful smile of his own as he followed Goliath.

Peter looked on in silence as Goliath gently laid Elisa down on the bed and removed her shoes, before pulling the covers over her, tucking them under her chin like she was a small child again. But Peter doubted rather strongly that Goliath was feeling 'fatherly' towards Elisa, as he softly stroked her hair one last time and whispered, "Sleep well," before getting up from his crouch by the bed and leaving the room.

Once they were outside the bedroom, Peter wordlessly gestured for Goliath to follow him out to the balcony. They both knew it was past time that they had a talk, and the balcony would be quieter for the sake of the females sleeping in the bedroom and living room.

Still dressed for the warm interior, Peter found himself wishing he'd thought to grab a coat as he stood and shivered on the balcony, but he stubbornly refused to go back inside for one; he supposed ruefully that the ol' man was trying to act tough in front of his daughter's boyfriend again. Goliath seemed to understand, because his lips quirked in a small smile as he reached under another potted plant for a thick square of folded material, and shook out a canvas tarpaulin as he said, "My hide is far thicker than yours due to my very nature, but even I can tell it's cold outside. This will help ward off the wind."

Peter accepted the tarpaulin with poor grace, but wrapped it around his shoulders. He noticed the fishing weights sewn onto the edges, and eyed them curiously. Why would anyone need to weight down a tarpaulin like… oh. He looked at Goliath suspiciously, and again the gargoyle seemed to know his thoughts, because he nodded soberly and admitted, "I sleep under it occasionally, on those days when I roost here instead of with my clan."

"So… you and Elisa have more than just friendship going now, don't you."

"Far more."

Peter took a deep breath and steeled himself before asking, "How much more?"

Goliath took a deep breath too, and released it with a sigh. He knew full well that he had to go carefully now; these were tricky currents to glide in, but his and Elisa's happiness could well be at stake. "Mr. Maza, I love your daughter more than life itself. To save Elisa, I would willingly let myself be rendered to shards and gravel. For her sake, I would rip my own wings from my back if I had to. I love her more than I would have thought possible, before waking up in this millennium; she is human and I am gargoyle, but she is the other half of my soul."

Peter looked at him, and knew that Goliath meant every word he was saying. He hadn't heard such an impassioned declaration of love since the night he'd asked Mr. Don Taylor for his daughter Diane's hand in marriage. Almost everyone they knew, with the exception of the Chavez family, had been convinced that they'd never make it last; they came from two different worlds, her from a strong Southern Baptist heritage and him from a Navajo reservation. But nearly thirty years later, he and Diane were still happily married… And maybe, just maybe, this gargoyle and Elisa, despite coming from two even more different worlds, had what it takes to make a relationship last that long. He told Goliath what he was thinking, finishing with, "If you do, then I'm happy for you both." But he couldn't help adding, "Of course, if you ever hurt her in any way, you'll have more than the Quarrymen to worry about."

Goliath half-chuckled. "I don't doubt it." And they talked for a while more, about Elisa and gargoyle traditions and Maza family traditions and love.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

At five minutes before dawn, Lexington came grumbling out of the nursery. "Somebody owes me big-time for this," he growled, looking at his tail-tip, which showed signs of abuse. "And you can't tell me that kid doesn't have carnivorous tastes."

"Ye actually let him teethe on yer tail!" Hudson chortled as he headed for his perch.

"It was the only way to shut him up! And I didn't even have a chance to check my e-mail or any chat rooms tonight; my buddies on-line probably think I've lost interest in discussing hang-gliding," he grumbled again as he went to tell Owen that Alex was all his, and welcome to it, before heading out to join his clan on the battlements for sunrise.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The next night, as they went back to the station after investing a scene, Matt Bluestone was very, very surprised to find Elisa tossing him her car keys. "Here you go; don't get too used to it, and try not to hit anything, okay?" Elisa said through a yawn as she got in on the passenger side of her Fairlane. Once seated, she grabbed for her coffee thermos and travel mug like they were worth more than gold, and began gulping down more coffee. She'd already gone through the coffee she'd brought from home; this was from the station's coffeepot. It looked like an oil slick and tasted worse, but right now she desperately needed the caffeine.

"What's going on, partner?" Matt said, staring at her in surprise, and more than a little worry. "I sent you home early and covered for you last night, just so you could get some more shut-eye, and here you are again with bags under your eyes that I could pack for a two-day trip!"

"Gee, thanks for the compliment," Elisa said wryly, before smothering another yawn. "Ah, it's just crunch time at home right now, with Mom going bonkers trying to get everything perfect for my brother's wedding. Now she's making not just the clothes but the altar cloth and runners and suchlike, and she's been spending hours at my place with her sewing machine, and having me run out to get more fabric glue, pearl buttons and crap. And when it isn't her, it's the Quarrymen and guests for the gargoyles and God-knows-what's-next."

"Yeah, weddings are always stressful." Matt was silent for a moment, then said casually, "So, when's the wedding? And by the way, why have you been keeping your brother's return a secret from all his old buddies at the station?"

Elisa coughed and spat coffee all over the dashboard. Matt hurriedly pulled over, and grabbed for a handful of napkins to mop up the mess as Elisa sputtered and tried to regain her composure. After nearly a minute, she wiped the last of the coffee off her face and the tears from her eyes, to see Matt looking at her with a mixture of sympathy for her plight and hurt anger; he'd caught her with another secret she'd been keeping from everybody, and she knew he'd caught her. She took a deep breath, had another spasm of coughing, then tried again. "If I tell you, it's another secret you'll have to keep as well. Nobody else at the station can know, not even Captain Chavez."

Matt smiled lopsidedly. "I've gotten pretty good at keeping secrets lately." Lately, between the Illuminati and the gargoyles, he'd been keeping more information under his hat than hair. (He suppressed a wince at the thought of that miniscule bald spot he'd seen forming in the mirror last week; dammit, he was too young to be going bald already!)

"Yeah, I suppose you have." Elisa sighed. "All right. It starts with a total sleazebag named Dr. Anton Sevarius…"

It took over half an hour for her to tell him everything. The mutates, the Labyrinth, even the gargoyle clones. She finished with telling about the baby on the way and the wedding plans, and when she did, he regarded her with something close to amazement. If he didn't know already about the gargoyles and Xanatos' involvement, he might have thought she was spinning a world-class whopper, but too much of it fitted in with what he already knew was true. He realized now why she'd hated Xanatos so much, even more than Tony Dracon and Tomas Brode combined. It was purest irony that Xanatos, who now seemed to be trying to mend his former sleazebag ways, had been just a few weeks too late with his cure for the mutates. But rather than point out any of the obvious, he just said, "No wonder you've been worn out. Look, once we get back and write up this last investigation, see if you can't sneak out early again; it's hard to investigate anything if you can't keep your eyes open. But, um, would you mind asking your brother if he'll issue another invite?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Once she'd gotten back to her apartment, Elisa yawned prodigiously as she took off her jacket and put her gun and holster in the gun safe. "Hi, Mom. How-_yawwwnnn_!-how's it coming?"

Still sitting at her sewing machine and attempting, through eyes at half-mast, to re-thread the machine with a new color of thread, Diane Maza said wearily, "Finished the pants, finished the jackets, finished the altar cloth and runners, and getting close to finished on Maggie's dress. You just missed her by ten minutes or so; she came here for her last fitting. And Xanatos called, asked if you'd call the castle when you get in; something about scrolls and a castaway."

"Castaway!" Elisa forgot her weariness and grabbed for the phone. She didn't have the number for Xanatos' office handy, but she already knew the number for the phone in the gargoyles' living quarters. "Hi, Angela, it's Elisa; is Goliath there?… Goliath, my mom took a message to call you; did we find out something about Jon Castaway?"

"Yes, we have," Goliath growled on the other end of the phone. "It seems that Xanatos--eh? Just a moment, Elisa." Then there was a click, and then Elisa heard the familiar slightly-attenuated sounds that indicated the other end was now a speakerphone, and Xanatos explaining to Goliath that in this fashion, Elisa could hear both of them without having to pause to relay questions and answers. Elisa smiled wryly as she thought to herself that it also meant she and Goliath couldn't exchange any sweet nothings once the important information had been passed on. Not that she was apt to do something like that anyway, with her mother sitting not ten feet away from her.

"I hired a few private detectives to investigate Castaway," Xanatos told her. "People who're possibly your equal for ingenuity and keen insight, but not your, shall we say, high level of scruples. And one of them brought back to me this evening a few pictures that had been taken in Castaway's apartment. Guess who has multiple sets of false ID, including a set with a press pass for a man named Jon Carter?"

As tired as she was, it took a second or two for the light bulb to click. Then Elisa swore violently enough for her mother to sit bolt upright and give her a disapproving eye, not that she cared at the moment. "Jon Canmore, the third Hunter! I can't believe we didn't figure it out before now! What the hell kind of detective am I, to be fooled by a scrawny mustache and fake accent!"

"Do not disparage yourself over this, Elisa," Goliath growled. "I didn't see it either, and I've fought him both as Hunter and Quarryman. It's not simply his accent that has changed; his entire way of moving in combat has altered as well. Before, and even at the confrontation at St. Damien's, he exhibited a hesitation, a reluctance to kill, but now… even the Vikings of old would applaud his thirst for our blood."

"I think our next step is to contact Jason Canmore, in the physical rehab facility he's in," Xanatos announced. "If, as you told me, he's truly changed in his attitude towards the gargoyles, maybe he can get his brother to see the light."

"Maybe," Elisa sighed, suddenly weary again. "It's worth a shot, at least." But privately, she doubted it. She knew already that Jon blamed the gargoyles for his brother's paralysis, even though he'd been the one to fire the shot that had crippled Jason and nearly killed him. If Jon admitted to himself that the gargoyles weren't all monsters, then that would mean admitting to himself that he'd been the one at fault in that fight… and he'd deny that even if he had his face rubbed in it. Just like Demona denied her own guilty part played in the massacre at Wyvern, and in Macbeth's tragedy, and so much more… But maybe, there was a chance. If both she and Jason could talk to him together, and she brought along her scrapbook… the same scrapbook she'd used to convince Jason that day, just before the confrontation at St. Damien's…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Did the lack of oxygen kill a few too many of yer brains cells, woman! How can ye even think of defending such monsters! If not for me, ye would have drowned, and that's a fact!" Jason had exploded at her while they stood by the side of the road, trying to hitch a ride back to Manhattan. Jason Conover's smooth Midwestern accent was now almost completely overwhelmed by the Scottish burr of Jason Canmore's childhood; he wasn't attempting to hide it at all anymore.

"If not for you and your family, I would never have been in danger in the first place!" Elisa had shouted back. "The only reason I was there at all was to keep Goliath from either killing you or getting killed by you! He was too angry to think straight when he went off alone to confront you, but wouldn't you be just a _teensy_ bit upset, if somebody first tried to kill your daughter, then blew up your home!"

Sixty-odd cars had passed them already, and from the way they were shouting at each other, Elisa wasn't a bit surprised; nobody sane would want to pick up two people in their obvious state of mind. And standing there shouting at each other might be raising their body temperatures a bit, but not enough to counteract the freezing-cold water still soaking their clothes. She blew out an exasperated breath and decided to change tactics. "First things first; we get ourselves a ride. Then when we get back to Manhattan, I've got some stuff in my apartment to show you. Here, hold these," as she took off her jacket and shoulder holster. "And go sit down on the other side of that boulder; you won't be as noticeable." And once he had, she stood facing the oncoming traffic, threw out her chest with it's soaking-wet T-shirt and bra plastered to her breasts, and did her best to look utterly helpless, adorable and sexy as she gestured with a thumb and an out-thrust hip. _Going my way_?

Within sixty seconds, an eighteen-wheeler pulled over for her. The driver, a young man with a scraggly blond beard and hair, rolled down the window and called out, not quite leering, "Where you headed, miss?"

Jason knew his cue and popped up, saying brightly, "We're going to Manhattan! It's ever so kind of you to be willing to help out my sister and me!"

The driver frowned at the unexpected extra, but couldn't quite bring himself to just drive off and leave them there, so he'd rather ungraciously given them a ride back to Manhattan. Once there, they'd taken a cab to her apartment. Elisa took one step inside the door and froze, mentally kicking herself; she hadn't thought about where the gargoyles were most apt to roost that day. There they all were, sitting stone ducks in her apartment, and she'd brought a Hunter home with her!

Jason swore violently as he looked over her shoulder and laid eyes on them, and shoved her to one side as he charged in, probably intending to grab one of the table lamps or something else that was heavy and start bashing away. But in his haste, he neglected to think about another resident of her apartment: Cagney. The cat shrieked like a banshee when he stepped on his tail, and shot out from under his foot with a violent lunge. Startled, Jason lost his footing and fell down, and before he could get back up again Elisa straddled him and whipped out her handcuffs.

"So is that yer plan, to leave me here as easy prey for the monsters when they awaken!" he'd shouted at her as she cuffed his hands behind his back.

"Of course not! I'm just trying to make sure they're not easy prey for you!" as she finished the job and got up, then helped him to his feet. "Now, I want you to look at them. Really look at them!" as she turkey-walked him up to where they were clustered. "Yes, they're different from us, they've got wings and tails and funny bumps on their heads, but what do these folks look like, right now?"

Jason had eyed the clan as they stood there, some of them slumped over, some with their faces buried in their hands, all of them with grief etched deep in their not-quite-human features, and said slowly, "They… they look sad."

"Yeah, and do you know why? Because they think one of their friends, namely me, is dead! Now, into the bathroom with you!" as Elisa pushed him in there. Once she had him sitting on the toilet, she blindfolded him with a handtowel so she could take a hot shower and get warm again. It occurred to her as she stood under the water that there was something decidedly kinky about this, but she thought--hoped--that Jason was still too ticked off to think of it that way. At least he stayed put as she got out and dried off. Only after fully dressing again, including putting her gun back on, did she untie the blindfold.

Jason had been remarkably silent throughout the shower, drying and dressing, but once she took the blindfold off he smiled at her wryly. "Ye've an interesting way of entertaining guests."

"Oh, shut up," she said, blushing hotly. Nope, he hadn't been too ticked off. At least he didn't have a tent in his pants. She escorted him back out to the dining room, and sat him down on one of the chairs. She undid one cuff so he could feed himself, and fastened the other end to the table leg so he couldn't jump up and start bashing away. "How do you like your eggs?"

While she made breakfast for them both, Jason tried to explain the righteousness of his cause to her, of his family's millennium-long quest to destroy 'the Demon'. He finished with, "My ancestors have compiled a list longer than I am tall of all the atrocities that Demon has committed, her and her monstrous kind!"

"And you know what? I can add at least a half-dozen atrocities to that list of yours, without even having to think hard!" Elisa said as she served him his scrambled eggs.

He'd been opening his mouth for an angry retort, when her words registered and he just left it hanging open for a moment. Then he said weakly, "What?"

"Demona is my enemy, too; she's tried to kill me at least a half-dozen times! She's shot at me, tried to beat me to a pulp, tried to poison me, cast spells on me; you name it, she's tried it!" Actually, the spells had been cast on the entire city, but she figured now wasn't the time to nit-pick.

"Th-then… why on God's green earth were you defending her kind earlier?"

"Not _her _kind, Jason; my friends are anything but! The other gargoyles are her enemies, too! Do you really think that psycho bitch has only tried to kill humans! She's utterly insane, she'll kill anyone in her way, including other gargoyles that are trying to defend the humans she hates! Look, here's what I know about her." And with that, she told him everything she knew of Demona. Everything she'd witnessed, and everything Goliath and the others had told her about; again, she was glad Goliath liked to use her for a sounding board when he was troubled by something. Not only did it show how much he trusted her, but it gave her plenty of data to add to Jason's list; enough to see that, regarding Demona, his ancestors were right on the money. She decided not to mention what she knew about Demona's involvement with Macbeth, and the fact that she might have happily stayed at Macbeth's side as advisor and ally, and friendly to the local humans there, if Duncan Canmore hadn't attacked with his English allies. The whole point of this was to find some mutual grounds for agreement, to better be able to change his mind on other matters.

"Aye, much of that sounds like the tales my father and grandfather told me," Jason said grimly. "Treacherous to her blackened and rotted core."

"No argument there," Elisa agreed as she wolfed down her eggs with a grimace; they'd gone cold during her story.

"But this other news, that she's even an enemy to her own kind… How certain are ye of that, truly?"

"As certain as I am of the reason your family's still hunting her, after a thousand years of trying to kill her. Ever wonder why you can't do it?"

"Some of our family has said she's sold her soul to Satan, in order to be his eternal pawn here on Earth, wreaking destruction at his bidding. Of course, others have said her kind have no souls to begin with."

"Without getting into anything theological, I can tell you why she's still around. This may sound nuts, but she's under a spell, bound to another immortal. The only way she can be killed is for the two of them to kill each other. God's truth; we got the story straight from the other guy himself." She paused to smile wryly as she pointed a fork at him. "Y'know, if your family _hadn't_ been chasing her around the globe all this time, and given her a chance to settle into one place, he probably would have found her by now and ended both their lives. He's sick of immortality, outliving all his loved ones, and he's been trying to track her down for a final battle for centuries!"

Jason could only stare at her, utterly appalled. "Y… ye're serious?"

"As homicide. I'm also serious about the other gargoyles being her enemies. Her enemies, because they're friendly to humans in general! Wait right here; I want to show you something." And with that, she'd dug into the bottom of her closet and pulled out her scrapbook.

Not even Goliath knew she had been keeping this, a scrapbook of their exploits with regards to crimefighting. Several pages held photocopies of police reports, which listed an 'unknown citizen' as having left a criminal unconscious and/or tied up for them to find. Several more held clippings from the National Enquirer and other tabloid rags, where 'avenging angels' had saved citizens from muggers and worse. Next to each entry, Elisa had written down the name of the gargoyle involved, and any other pertinent details that the 'official' report had left out. None of it was evidence that would last more than ten seconds in court, but Elisa thought that someday, if Captain Chavez or the other police officers ever found out about the people secretly living in the clocktower over the station, Elisa could show them this in hopes of persuading them to let her friends stay. Of course, now that the clocktower was destroyed, it was largely a moot point, but maybe she could use it to persuade Jason of their good intentions.

Jason had looked through the scrapbook. He'd asked questions, she'd given answers. They'd argued, nit-picked, called each other blind idiots, and so on and so forth until almost an hour till sunset, but Jason had finally agreed that she'd been right and he'd been wrong. His whole family had been wrong, all those times they'd found 'the Demon' with a nest of gargoyles and wreaked havoc there, trying to destroy all of them but somehow always missing her. When he'd mentioned the other clans of gargoyles, burned to death or riddled with arrows or shattered in their stone sleep, Elisa had closed her eyes and told herself not to lose her lunch. They were dead, and she could do nothing for them now. But if she could prevent more from being killed…

Jason agreed to help persuade his brother and sister to call off the hunt for the other gargoyles. "We'll take that scrapbook of yours to the apartment I share with them; perhaps between the two of us, we'll be able to persuade them. Actually, the only one we'll likely have to persuade will be my sister, Robin; some of what ye've been saying is what my brother Jon has been trying to tell us all along. I wish now I'd listened to him afore this!"

So they left a note for the clan on the kitchen table, figuring that Broadway would find it when he dug into her refrigerator for something to eat, though Elisa hoped to be back before they woke up. But when they got to Jason's apartment, they found it empty, and got caught in a traffic jam on the way back. By the time they got back to her place, it was well after sunset and the gargoyles had woken up and left already, with no indications that they had read her note. "Blast! Now where could they have gone!" as Elisa, frustrated, kicked at a stray stone shard.

"Likely hunting my brother and sister," Jason said wryly. "Who're no doubt hunting for them! But after the tape we made and broadcast last night, the whole city will be on the lookout for them; likely the easiest way to find them will be to listen to the police scanner in your car and head for the loudest ruckus."

Elisa reluctantly agreed, and so they'd gotten back into the Fairlane. And less than an hour later, Elisa's scanner had picked up news of the battle at St. Damien's. When they'd found traffic clogged and snarled beyond moving nearly five blocks away from the ruined cathedral, not even responding to her slap-on siren, they'd sworn and jumped out of the Fairlane to go forward on foot. Then they'd seen an ambulance worming its way through the crowd; it was standard procedures to call one in when there was a threat of riot, and there most definitely was a riot forming outside the cathedral. Elisa had dashed right up to it, whipped out her badge and shouted for the driver, one she knew, to give them a lift up to St. Damien's. "Dammit, Jimmy, lives are at stake and we have to get there fast!" And Jimmy had given them both a lift there. Then, less than half an hour later, he'd been transporting Jason to the hospital in a race to save his life, after being shot by his own brother…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Detective, are you still with us?" Xanatos said over the phone, sounding a bit bemused.

Elisa jerked a bit, realizing she'd been woolgathering while still on the phone. "Oh, sorry. What did you say?"

"I said, on a positive note, I did some talking to the curators of the museum that's holding the Scrolls of Merlin. Rather than our friends risking breaking and entering charges to get King Arthur the information he needs, I've convince the museum to release the scrolls into my custody for a few days, so my 'expert' can have a shot at translating them. King Arthur's going to record a transcript of his translation for them once he's had look for himself; this way, the museum benefits as well." Xanatos sounded quite pleased with himself, and she had to admit it was a better plan than the gargoyles' idea of just sneaking in there. "We'll be getting the scrolls tomorrow, and Arthur has agreed to give us a reading two nights from now, the night after Derek and Maggie's wedding. Want to come over for a night of storytelling?"

His voice more faint but still clear, Broadway chimed in enthusiastically from wherever he was in the castle's living room. "Come on, Elisa, it'll be great! Almost like having a real bard come visiting again!"

Elisa smiled, considering that traveling bards and minstrels had been highly prized for entertainment back in medieval times; this was probably more exciting for them than getting tickets to the NBA playoffs had once been for Derek. She had the night off after the wedding, too, so she agreed to be there for the reading. And as she hung up a little while later, she reflected that she must really be living in a fairy tale; it wasn't every girl who had a king telling her a bedtime story!

NEXT: WEDDING BELLES


	5. Guests and Pasts (PG version)

**LIFE GOES ON**

**_Revelations of the Labyrinth, Part 4: Guests and Pasts _**

**_(PG version)_**

By Kimberly T.

Patrol had been slow so far tonight; only one assault tonight, foiled swiftly and easily, and the lady they'd saved hadn't screamed and ran, either. Though that was largely due to Broadway's sincere efforts at both 'damage control' and appeasing his patrol partner, since Angela had been ready to gut the would-be rapist on the spot. But he'd convinced her to be satisfied with simply knocking him unconscious, though so thoroughly he privately doubted the creep would wake up any time soon.

Angela had then helped the would-be victim recover her clothes and a little of her dignity, while Broadway considerately turned his back and spread his wings for an impromptu screen. Then he'd asked the woman very nicely, while twisting a metal trash can handle into an impromptu pair of handcuffs, if she'd mind making sure the criminal stayed put until the police showed up with bolt-cutters, and gave them her statement. (Elisa had told them that the patrol officers of her precinct, at least, had taken to very quietly adding bolt-cutters to the other supplies carried in their trunks, after finding several criminals mysteriously tied in this fashion.) Now, as they sat on a rooftop at Cloisters together, Broadway looked at Angela with more than a little concern in his eyes. "Angela, what was the deal with that crook back there, anyway? You almost scared _me_, with the way you went after him; I thought for a minute there that you were going to turn him into cat food for Cagney."

"I was tempted," Angela said shortly. She pointedly ruffled her wings as she looked away, into the courtyard below; she really didn't want to talk about it just then. She wasn't sure he'd understand if she did try to explain it; he was a male, and he hadn't grown up with her and her rookery sisters on Avalon. She wished he hadn't brought the subject up again, because she'd suggested the break here at Cloisters just to cool her boiling blood down afterwards.

She knew the rest of the clan avoided this place when they could, and strongly suspected that her mother had something to do with the reason why, but she refused to let that spoil her enjoyment of its quiet beauty, almost like a tiny corner of Avalon. Just coming to perch here on the rooftop had started to calm her, but then Broadway had to open his mouth… She sighed as she looked down into the courtyard, mentally reciting the conjugation of some irregular verbs in Latin, just as the Magus used to do under his breath when he was becoming exasperated with an unruly hatchling at lessons.

The Magus, dead after fighting the Weird Sisters to save their clan… She wished now that she'd given him the bookmark she'd embroidered for him, under the princess' tutelage, the same night that she'd finished it. But she'd been saving it for the clan's Hatchday celebration… a celebration that now neither of them would attend. Just before she'd gone down to the beach, to ask Goliath if she could go with him, she'd sneaked back into the Hall of the Sleeping King and laid the bookmark next to his pale still hand. If a Resurrection ever came, as according to that Bible the princess used to tell stories from, the Magus would find it ready and waiting for his use.

Thinking about him cooled her anger to a sad, weary calm again, a pale version of the sort of calm that comes after tears. To her, he'd been gone for several months now, but to her sisters and brothers, it hadn't even been two weeks since his untimely death. Poor Zipporah and Odysseus, his favorite pupils, were probably still perilously close to tears whenever his name was mentioned. The central courtyard of Cloisters was a bit like the center courtyard for the castle on Avalon, and when she half-closed her eyes and looked through her lashes at the central arch, she could almost imagine that she was seeing him there, with his staff in one hand and one of the clan's precious books in the other, waiting for all the hatchlings to settle down so he could begin the night's lessons.

She looked across the courtyard with eyes still half shut, letting sweet memory fill in her vision and whisper old voices in her ears. There was Raphael, sitting at the table playing trenchers with Odysseus, and trying to divert his attention so he could cheat outrageously again, even though he knew they'd catch him at it. Such a jester he always was, the only one who could make Esther laugh, and there she stood behind him, combing out her long blonde hair.

And there were Michael and Menalippe, their tails lovingly entwined as he plaited another love-knot into her mane. And there was Atalanta, playing with her gliding squirrel, and threatening her mate Uriel with decapitation if he tried to feed it to Boudicca again. But Boudicca knew better than to touch an animal with a ribbon around its neck, the way they marked all their pets from their prey, so she just snorted at them as she gnawed on a thighbone from last night's deer.

And there was Deborah, making another basket, and leaning contentedly against Jephthah's leg as he finished stitching together a new quiver for Penthesilea. And there was Penthesilea, checking over her arrows to see if the older ones needed replacing yet, sighting down the shafts and running a thumb-talon along the fletchings.

And there were Gideon and Hippolyta, happily bashing away at each other with their swords and shields again, another one of those spur-of-the-moment fights they were notorious for. And there was Gabriel, coming over to remind them that they'd agreed to do their practice fighting outside…

But he wasn't really there, he was in Avalon and she was here, now, and she wasn't going back there any time soon, maybe not ever, not when there was so much more to see and learn! It was time to think of other things, like the rest of their patrol route. She stood up abruptly, startling Broadway. "Well, let's finish this patrol and head back to the castle!" she said brightly.

"Okay," Broadway said agreeably, though he was a bit disappointed. He'd just been about to caress her tail with the tip of his, an invitation to coil them together, and do a little courting while resting here. He'd gotten out of the habit of thinking of this place as 'tainted' by Demona, though he supposed the rest of the clan never would. Especially Brooklyn; he knew Brooklyn never even flew within three blocks of this place if he could avoid it. (Broadway sometimes suspected that a lot more had happened here than Brooklyn had ever told them about, to make him hate Demona even more than Goliath did.) But that was okay with Broadway, if it meant that he could spend time here with Angela; she'd taught him to appreciate the quiet beauty of the place, and now when they patrolled together, they often stopped here.

It was funny, whenever they left here she acted like she was in a real hurry to get somewhere, but she seemed to be even more interested in his attempts at courtship later on in the night. That is, so long as he kept the physical stuff to holding hands and entwining tails; anywhere closer in was still forbidden territory. He thought wryly as they leaped off the roof together that it would be a lot easier to stay away from that forbidden territory if he didn't already know so well what touching it would be like… Boy, those two rookery sibs of Goliath's could make a courtship complicated! Then he told himself sternly to stop thinking about those two and what they'd done, before he had a tent in his loincloth again…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It had been less than a month ago, when Goliath--or at least, they thought then that it had been Goliath--had brought Coldstone to the clocktower. He'd told them he had a plan to draw out the three spirits that dwelt within Coldstone, separate and drive away forever the evil one that was causing so much torment for the lovers trapped within, and needed volunteers to provide "temporary housing" for the lovers' spirits. Angela had volunteered immediately, with Broadway a close second, and Brooklyn, though he seemed a shade uneasy about it, had volunteered as well. (At the time, they'd thought his offer had been unnecessary; looking back, Broadway sometimes wondered what would have happened if Brooklyn had kept his mouth shut.) And only a short while later, Broadway and Angela had found themselves as mere passengers in their own bodies, with two spirits who had long been denied fleshly pleasures firmly in control.

Goliath had done a lot more reading in the last two years than the rest of the clan put together, and he'd remarked once that his not-quite-deceased rookery brothers and sister had reminded him of three characters in a play by Shakespeare; Othello, Desdemona and Iago. Broadway had read that play last week while looking for some more poetry to read to Angela, and he had to admit the descriptions sort-of fit, from what he'd glimpsed of his spirit-guest's memories while they'd shared a body. "Othello" was a dour soul with a jealous streak even wider than the average gargoyle's, but he really did love his mate "Desdemona" clear to the bone, deeply and passionately. Very, very passionately. As "Othello" had made very clear, when he and his beloved could actually touch each other again.

Not knowing that their 'hosts' were still aware of what their 'guests' were doing inside their bodies, they had gone off to feel the wind beneath their wings again. And Brooklyn, who was unknown to them possessed by "Iago", had slyly suggested that they take their sweet time in returning to be sucked back into Coldstone's form. That unfeeling prison where, even if they were together and no longer tormented by their evil brother, they could not truly touch each other. "Othello" and "Desdemona" had known that the right thing to do was to go back; after all, these bodies had spirits of their own that would no doubt like to get back to the business of running them. But still, surely they wouldn't be begrudged just this one night…

Their guests hadn't actually mated, hadn't actually joined the two host bodies together as one, because "Desdemona" could tell that Angela hadn't mated before, and didn't want to cheat her of her first experience. But having been mates in the flesh for nearly two decades before the fall of Wyvern, having bred and laid and egg together, they were very familiar with all the different ways to please each other without actually mating. And they saw no harm in bringing each other to the peak of pleasure, sating their borrowed senses with each other till Othello had roared with Broadway's voice and Desdemona had tossed back Angela's mane with a scream of pure ecstasy. And Broadway, helpless but extremely aware of what was happening, received more of an education about females bodies in general (and Angela's in particular) in just two hours than in the last two decades of living combined. He'd even learned a few things about his own body that he hadn't known before, hadn't even thought about until then. And Angela, also helplessly aware, was receiving the same sort of education about her own body, and Broadway's…

After Coldstone and the newly embodied Coldfire had bolted off after the fleeing Coldsteel, he and Angela had reluctantly discussed it afterwards, sitting on opposite sides of a rooftop and carefully not looking at each other. Well, she didn't look, but he couldn't help peeking at her a time or two, remembering what her body had looked like under her tunic, and how she'd felt under his caressing hands… Finally, he cleared his throat and said, "So, that wasn't really us doing that; it was… like watching a movie, almost, but with us as the characters on screen, too." Yeah, a porno flick, part of his mind said wryly. Like that one he'd caught Goliath watching on the sly one night…

"No, it wasn't really us," Angela had agreed, still without looking at him.

"And since it wasn't us doing that, then as far as I'm concerned, it never happened," he said firmly. "And it shouldn't affect our relationship, well, whatever relationship we've got right now, and whatever we're heading for, right? I mean, I like you a lot, Angela. But I'm worried that what _they_ did will make us so uncomfortable around each other that we can't even be friends anymore!"

He'd been racking his brains for hours, thinking of the best to say it, and he figured that he'd gotten it right when she turned to look at him at last. "Oh, Broadway, that's exactly it! I'm so glad you understand! But you're right, it should be that as far as we're concerned, it didn't really happen; we can't let it ruin whatever's meant to be between us, whether we're to be just friends, or…" she blushed, and let it die unfinished, but she didn't have to finish it.

So, they'd agreed on a few ground rules. Holding hands was okay, friendly hugs were okay, even twining tails was okay, but no more than that, with him or with the others (he was very careful to work that in there), until she made her choice as to who she wanted for a mate. And so they went back to the clocktower, and things were just settling back to normal when the Hunters had come to town. But he still remembered what it had been like to bring Angela's body to the peak of ecstasy, and he _definitely_ remembered what it had been like for her to do the same for him.

In a way, he was kind-of glad it had happened, because back when he and his rookery brothers had no names or need of them, it had been his brother with the red skin, beak and horns who'd been popular with their rookery sisters. He figured that, without that memory of his body giving hers such pleasure, Angela might have started leaning towards Brooklyn, the second-in-command who'd always been popular. But with that memory, she was able to consider him as a serious suitor, and his poetry, thoughtfulness and cooking were, he hoped, slowly winning her over. Perhaps someday he'd be able to call her his Angel of the Night, his beloved mate… But if he rushed towards that goal like he wanted to, she'd think the wrong thing and back away! Yep, those two had sure made a courtship complicated. But considering that they just might have made it possible in the first place, he couldn't complain too much.

He came to himself with a start, realizing that even though he'd told himself not to think about it, he'd spent at least ten minutes thinking about it, because here he was several blocks from the Cloisters with no memory of how he got there, sleep-winging his way through a patrol! He was lucky he hadn't blundered into a skyscraper, or worse yet, a Quarryman. If Goliath ever found out, he'd be in major trouble. But even on autopilot, he'd managed to keep up with Angela; maybe she hadn't noticed. He began frantically scanning the landscape around them, searching for anything unusual to point out and save face by at least a good pretense that he'd been busy with patrol matters. And lo and behold, he found something unusual, all right! "Look, Angela! Over by the docks, between those warehouses, do you see them?"

Angela turned to look, and said excitedly, "Yes, I do! A bird-winged gargoyle, and a human passenger!"

"Bet they're Griff and King Arthur. I think they're coming from the direction of the clocktower; they must have been looking for us!" as they wheeled and changed course.

A few minutes later, they were hallooing Griff and King Arthur, who had evidently traded in his regally medieval clothing for more modern wear, blue jeans and a black shirt under a red jacket. (Angela thought amusedly that it looked like Elisa had made quite an impression on him.) "What ho, chaps!" Griff roared happily. "Ah, Angela, so you and Goliath made it home at last, eh?"

"A few months ago!" Angela said happily as she and Broadway fell into escort positions beside the pair from Great Britain. "And the guys told us how you two ended up together! So, should I call you Sir Griff now?"

"Ah, just good ol' Griff is fine between friends! I say, we just came from looking for you at your clocktower, and we were becoming rather worried about you! A bit harsh for a redecorating job, eh what?"

"Yeah, you could say that!" Broadway agreed wryly. "It's a long story, but we can tell you about it when we get to our new home--well, actually it's our old home, but that's an even longer story--anyway, follow us to that castle up there!" as he pointed at Castle Wyvern, standing out above the other skyscrapers of Manhattan as it perched atop the Aerie Building.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In the heart of the castle, Goliath silently marveled at the sight in front of him; Elisa and Xanatos, together in his office, and neither of them so much as snapping at each other. Even just last week, he wouldn't have believed it if even the Magus himself had come back to life and prophesied it, despite the fact that they had a mutual enemy now. But since then they'd found out that Xanatos' scientists had managed to come up with a cure for the mutates, even if only Fang had taken it so far. And now, in addition to his usual corporate work, he was working to better the lives of the Labyrinth residents. He seemed to be taking it on as a personal project, too, rather than just throwing money and hired experts at it; last night, Broadway had found himself advising a note-taking Xanatos on the sort of equipment one would want for a kitchen feeding large quantities of people, without needing a trained staff down there as well to handle them. (Fortunately, Broadway had already given the subject some thought during the few times he'd been down in their kitchen, passing on his many creative recipes for rat.)

In the three days since the revelation, Elisa seems to have grudgingly admitted that it might just be barely possible that the man had changed just slightly since the birth of his son, though she was a long way from considering him a reliable ally, let alone a friend. But when it came to the Quarrymen, Elisa was more than ready to listen to any suggestions he had; those people were just too dangerous. They'd had too many close calls already; the next encounter might easily result in a clan member's death.

"If we could just get that Castaway character's fingerprints, and run them through the national databases!" Elisa grouched as she slumped in her chair. "He's just too slick not to have a shady past lurking out there. But nothing he and his organization have done so far have broken any laws against humans, or where there were human witnesses present, so we've got nothing to book him on!" She didn't even bother to mention that she herself had been nearly killed by the Quarrymen; the only witness had been Goliath, and since it had interrupted what was to have been their first real date… Not a snowball's chance in Hell of getting anywhere with that one, without getting themselves in even worse trouble.

Xanatos drummed his fingers on the table and looked glumly at Goliath as he speculated, "Maybe I should just invite some environmentalists up here, to have you guys declared an endangered species. That would get you at least _some_ legal protection… But even if they cut through all the red tape to get it done before the next millennium, you'd probably end up being shipped back to Scotland as your native environment, or I'd have to turn the castle into a wetlands preservation project or something."

Elisa snorted in reluctant amusement. "Or something. Even Matt agrees that getting Washington involved would be a mistake right now, and he's former FBI. All right, I'm desperate. This isn't a police detective talking anymore, this is a desperate woman talking, so listen up. What kind of dirty tricks have you still got stuffed away up your sleeves that could be used against these creeps?"

"Why, Miss Maza, are you referring to dastardly doings like industrial espionage, sabotage, and fiendish plots like that? _Moi_?" as Xanatos laid a dramatic hand on his chest and fluttered his eyelashes at her. Almost despite themselves, both Goliath and Elisa chuckled. "Actually, I'm already at work on that. I've got two trusted employees going to the next Quarryman rally with orders to bring back, ah… You're quite sure this is off the record?"

"Tell you what, you can tell Goliath, then he can decide whether or not you can tell me. Go right ahead," and Elisa put her hands over her ears, closed her eyes and began singing in an off-key voice, "_Fa la la la la, la la la la_! Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light…"

That did it; everybody burst out with semi-hysterical laughter. Owen Burnett quirked an eyebrow at them as he brought in another tray of coffee and tea for them all, the faint but unmistakable sounds of an upset baby echoing in behind him. He said in his usual expressionless voice, "Unrestrained and inappropriate laughter is a common sign of fatigue, sir."

"Too many days of too little sleep," Xanatos agreed as he wiped the tears from his eyes with one hand and accepted a cup of coffee with the other. "If it ain't Alex's teething and the offices overseas, it's the Quarrymen and the Labyrinth. I should have cloned another me instead of you," he said blearily to a startled Goliath. "That way, at least one of me would get some sleep."

"Why don'cha have the fairy here zap Alex's teething troubles away?" Elisa said as she waggled a finger in Owen's direction. She was just as tired, not from dealing with a cranky baby but from spending a lot of her normal sleeping hours with her mother, making plans and wedding attire for the Labyrinth double wedding coming up in a few days.

Owen sighed very loudly; Goliath would have bet large sums of money, if he'd had any, that this was not the first time the question had been asked. "Because Oberon's _geas_ on Puck constrains me to use magic only for the purpose of either protecting the boy or training him, in lessons he is ready to learn. Alex is in no danger from his own teeth coming in, and he is quite frankly too young to learn the appropriate spells for regulating his own body." For just a moment, the perfectly emotionless exterior slipped, and a trace of Puck showed through as he finished, "Or believe me, he'd have gone through teething in twelve minutes or less!"

Goliath drained the cup of tea that had just been handed to him, then got to his feet. "I believe that nearly everyone in this room is in need of sleep, and that we'll get no further in our efforts tonight. Come, Elisa, and I'll take you home. And I'll call Lexington in early from patrol, to take over tending Alex; he has much experience with teething infants, from his nights as an assistant in the old rookery. If you'll leave Alex in our quarters and in his hands, Xanatos, you and Fox can also get some rest."

"Fox'll go for that," Xanatos agreed as he rubbed at his eyes. "She told me earlier that she'd rather fight another bush war in Africa than go through another week of this."

Just then, a high-pitched beeping came from one wall of the office, and a large section of paneling slid away to reveal a bank of monitors, two of which automatically flickered to life as they stared at them. "Oh, no," Xanatos moaned. "Please, not a direct attack tonight!"

But as the monitor screens for the east-facing security cameras focused on the unknown intruders that had caused the proximity alert, Goliath's face split in a wide grin. "Not Quarrymen at all, but friends! Griff, and King Arthur!"

"A griffin and King Arthur. Right. Owen, put me to bed, because I'm obviously in Slumberland already."

"Actually, you might want to stay awake for this," Elisa said with a twinkle in her eye. "Griff is a gargoyle from the London clan, and that man on his back is the real, honest, straight-from-Camelot-via-Avalon King Arthur."

Xanatos blinked at her, then turned back to Owen and ordered, "More coffee. And tea, and break out the best china."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

By the time the remaining clan members had been called in from patrol, King Arthur and Griff had been royally welcomed to the clan's home, and been supplied with tea and other refreshments. Xanatos and Fox had come out together, leaving Owen with Alex, long enough to greet their guest and invite him to make use of a guest room that had been already prepared (Xanatos always kept one ready for Elisa these days, just in case the Quarrymen found her apartment again.)

After seeing their guests made comfortable, the tired parents had regretfully excused themselves to get some desperately needed sleep, down in the castle's dungeons. (Not that Fox was feeling kinky that night, as she explained to David while they went down, but it was the only place in the castle that she was sure was far enough away that they wouldn't be woken up by Alex's cries.) Only moments after coming back from patrol and greeting King Arthur and Griff, Lexington found himself summarily pressed into service as a nanny, with instructions to keep the boy as quiet as possible for as long as he could. Owen further told Lex to wake him up to take over Alex's care only five minutes before either dawn or the Apocalypse, whichever came first. Both King Arthur and Griff had nodded knowingly, as soon as they'd heard the muffled sounds of Alex's cries coming from the nursery as Lexington went inside. "Teething, is he?" Griff remarked. "I always made sure I was on London duty when that happened in the rookery."

"Hey, where's Bronx?" as Brooklyn looked around for him. "I haven't seen him all night."

"If he's not hiding up on the highest parapet, then Fox and Xanatos will probably find him tucked under their bed downstairs," Hudson remarked as he poured himself another cup of tea. "Even watchbeasts have their limits, and the wee prince's constant fussing has worn even him out of late."

"One of the burdens of raising a child, that occasionally threatens to overshadow the many joys," King Arthur said sagely, and a bit sadly. He and Guinevere had never personally known those joys or burdens, though they'd kept right on trying until… He shook away sad memories of a wife and kingdom lost centuries ago, as he sat back and sipped his tea.

"Oh, by the way, Una and Leo asked me to say hello to you for them," Griff said to Goliath and Elisa. "And Una said to tell you specifically that she's been doing some digging, but has yet to come across what you're looking for, whatever that is."

Goliath looked inquiringly at Elisa, who colored slightly as she said, "I'll explain later." Privately, she sighed and thought that she should have known better than to get her hopes up for even an instant, when she'd seen Griff coming in for a landing. Just before leaving London, Elisa had been marveling over the hundreds of mystical items in their shop, and had oh-so-casually asked Una if she had ever come across a magical charm that could turn a human into a gargoyle temporarily, like Puck had done with Titania's Mirror once, but on a voluntary basis. Una had smiled at her knowingly, and said she'd look into it… To keep Goliath from probing further just then, she decided to change the subject, to something that she'd been wondering about anyway. "Say, Griff, I've been meaning to ask you something; do you have any idea why your clan, and pretty much only your clan, has feathered wings?"

Griff harrumphed and rubbed his beak for a moment. "Actually, I do. It's a bit embarrassing, really, but I suppose there's no harm in telling you."

Elisa hastily raised her hand to forestall him. "I don't want to embarrass you; I was just curious."

"Actually, so am I," Angela spoke up with an interested expression. "But I don't see what could be embarrassing about having such beautiful wings…"

Griff straightened up a bit and almost preened one of those beautiful wings, proof that he wasn't above taking a compliment from a pretty female, while Broadway looked a little upset for a moment. "Well, this is the story as I was told it by my old rookery keepers, and in a way it relates to why King Arthur and I are here in New York again," as he nodded to his liege lord. "Up until the seventh century A.D., my clan looked much like any other gargoyle clan, with the leathery wings in various shapes and with heads more closely resembling human heads. And we had a good relationship with one of the human clans living near what's now London; mutual protection pact, hunting partners, that sort of thing. But when Christianity began really digging in and taking hold in England, we rapidly found ourselves being persecuted by many of the priests of the new religion. It seems that gargoyles in their natural state resemble their ideas of demons and devils, and so they began accusing us of acting like their demons as well as looking like them."

"We've had more than a taste of that ourselves," Goliath rumbled as he scowled, thinking of past encounters.

"Right, but we had one advantage over you Scots; a local mage was rather fond of us. The old boy was pure Druid right down to his toes, but he wouldn't raise a hand against the practitioners of the new religion; he believed in letting everyone have their say, even if he thought they were daft as snake shoes." Arthur gave his knight a raised eyebrow, silently reminding him that his liege lord was a professed Christian, but Griff just grinned unrepentantly and went on. "He just stood by and said and did nothing, until one day while he was harvesting mistletoe, he came upon a party of human warriors, led by a Christian priest and all armed with hammers, picks and whatever tools they could find. He had a feeling they were up to no good, so he followed them at a distance, and it's a jolly good thing he did, because he caught up to them just as they were laying waste to my ancestors while they slept."

Everyone gasped in horror as Griff went on, "They killed some of the warriors, those who'd been posted on the easily accessible ledges, but didn't have a chance to climb down the cliffs and get into the rookery or at the rest of the adults before the mage decided enough was enough. He summoned eagles and hunting hawks, and drove the humans away from the cliffs, with a lightning bolt or two to singe their tails once they were at a safe distance. Then he stayed till sunset, to let my ancestors know what had happened to their best warriors."

"When the clan awoke and learned what had happened, there was a great deal of grief and a great outcry for vengeance, of course, but the mage persuaded the clan's leader that to visit the same destruction on the human village would only lead to even more humans hating them, instead of a few misguided fools. Then the clan's second-in-command, who had been reportedly very fond of the humans and had even listened in on some of their clan gatherings, said out loud that the problem was all caused by the new religion that depicted them all as devils instead of angels, ravagers instead of protectors. And a youngster who'd been listening in wondered what an angel was supposed to look like… and decided to find out.

"Now this youngster was a very independent and curious sort, always sneaking off to the human village to see what they were doing, and had made friends with a few of the children there. So he sneaked off to the village that very night, despite the entire clan being in mourning for their comrades and alert for another attack, found one of his little friends, and asked him what an angel was supposed to look like. Luckily for us all, the human boy in question was not too fond of the local priest, because the priest had told him repeatedly that he was bound for hell for stealing apples or somesuch. So he sneaked into the church, stole the priest's own Bible and brought it back to where the youngster was waiting. Now remember, this was centuries before the printing press, and back then each book was made by hand, and often to individual tastes. And it so happened that this particular Bible had only a few pages of artwork done in color. But one of the plates was a depiction of the four Saints of the Gospel: St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John."

Elisa was the first one to catch on, and gave a groaning laugh. "Don't tell me, let me guess. The plate was of the four symbols for the saints: the eagle, the lion, the bull and the man… all with angel's wings."

Griff nodded wryly. "Right on the mark. And of course, that's the page that the youngster took back to the clan, to show to the clan leader and the mage who was still there, and asked the mage if he could make them look like that, so they could be friends with the humans again. The clan leader was desperate to find a solution that would let them keep their home territory without mutual slaughter, and begged the mage to do what the hatchling asked; he said that so long as they could still glide, he didn't give a stone shard what his wings looked like. So the mage cast his spell, using the page from the Bible as a guide, and transformed the entire clan on the spot, even the unhatched eggs in the rookery. By sunrise, they all had angel wings… and most of them, animal heads. And so we've been ever since."

"Once my ancestors were changed, the druid mage saw to it that a few sympathetic locals spread the word that the clan of 'demons' had been driven out of their homes, and a clan of guardian angels had taken roost there instead. And he even persuaded the clan leader to have several of his most trustworthy and tolerant warriors live in the human village, and roost in the local church's steeple and belfry just to prove to the doubtful that they were 'holy angels'. Of course, since the angels evidently had a truly boring home life, they could permit no hatchlings or eggs to be seen by humans, ever; the young were nearly cloistered until they were close to full growth. And before going on patrol, everyone had to master the 'angel look'," and Griff demonstrated by holding his hands together in front, in a prayerful fashion, and looked upwards piously, "and for centuries they had to wear these daft glowing golden plates strapped to their heads (the mage's idea of what a halo was like), and heavy robes that constantly got in the way when they were gliding. All in all, it worked out for the best, though, because we were never hunted or hammered again."

"The clan lived peaceably right in the middle of London, up until the close of the fifteenth century, when a few too many people began to get suspicious about us. That's when the clan pooled all the odd bits of treasure and whatnot that had been collecting about the rookery—you know how hatchlings love to play with pretty shiny things, and so the adults would bring trinkets home for them from time to time—well, that and the melted-down 'halos' came to quite a tidy sum. The one family of humans that knew who we truly were, caretakers of the cathedral we lived in, used the money to buy a title. With the title came some property outside London, with a decent-sized castle which we all moved into, lock, stock and rookery. But the adults still patrol London, a few at a time (and doing it quite a bit more now that I've showed the younger generation how it's done properly, if I may say so myself), and maintain the shop of magical items you met Una and Leo at; the profits from it pay the taxes on our castle."

"A most interesting history," Goliath said, as everyone else nodded agreement. "But how precisely does it relate to your reason for being here in Manhattan again?"

"Because we are still questing to find my old tutor, Merlin," King Arthur put in. "And from the description passed down through the centuries, I'm certain that the druid mage who saved Griff's clan and enchanted them into their present state was none other than Merlin himself. It could only have been him who taught that rhyming riddle to the clan's hatchlings, the one that guided me to find Excalibur centuries later."

"And so we're here to have a look at those Scrolls of Merlin being kept in one of the city's museums; Arthur hopes that one of those stories written on the scrolls will hold a clue to Merlin's present whereabouts." Griff chuckled. "A pity nobody thought to mention those scrolls when we were here last time! Macbeth may have provided us with transportation back to London the first time, but we only just heard of those scrolls while we were returning from hunting down a false lead in Spain, and we had more than a bit of bother getting to this side of the Atlantic again."

"Yeah, I guess we should have thought of those," Brooklyn agreed as he rubbed his beak in embarrassment. "What can I say; it had been a busy night!"

"Well, I for one am glad you've returned here," Angela put in with an eager expression. "It's good to see you both again, and we'd love to hear of your travels and everything you've encountered in your quest!"

And so the ancient king and his gargoyle knight sat and talked for well over an hour about their quest for Merlin. Everyone listened intently, but none more so than Angela, who practically hung on their every word. This did not go unnoticed, and Arthur subsequently let Griff do most of the narrating, while he threw in an occasional sentence about encounters he'd had during the day while Griff was asleep. When he wasn't speaking, he was smiling with a trace of amusement at both the gargoyle lass and his knight, who was telling their story with more dash and flair than his best court minstrel back at Camelot could have done.

Goliath was also looking at the two of them, and he was not smiling. Brooklyn and Broadway were both scowling deeper as time went by, and once or twice tried to change the subject of conversation, but Angela hushed them impatiently and urged Griff to keep telling his story. After a while, Arthur got up from his chair and began looking for the 'garderobe', as he still called bathrooms. Goliath said he'd show him where the nearest one was, but as soon as they were out of sight and hearing of the others, he stopped the High King of Briton with one massive hand on his shoulder as he said, "You are _not_ taking my daughter with you on your quest, is that understood?"

Arthur merely smiled at him amusedly. "What's this; you fear I or Griff would compromise her honor?"

"No, I fear you would lead her off to some other part of the world when it's almost time for her to breed! Angela will be rising to breed in the autumn of next year, and she's the only breedable female this clan has; we need the egg she'll lay for the rookery, to ensure our clan continues." He knew that if Angela or Elisa ever heard him talking so callously, both would refuse to speak to him for at least another full moon, but some things were too important to waste time softening edges and applying pretty gilding with 'politically correct' phrases, and making sure the clan continued was definitely one of them.

Arthur lost his amused smile and nodded soberly. "I understand. Even if she asks and Griff begs, I'll not allow her along; a pregnant woman has no business questing. But you may have trouble in keeping her at home regardless; I've seen her spirit before, in women of my time who donned trousers and false beards to pass themselves off as squires and knight-errants. Griff no doubt believes it's his own fine features and feats of bravery she's currently enthralled by, but it's hardly him at all; it's the places we've been to in our quest, and the wonders we've seen. Your daughter desires to see more of the world, and if you are not careful, one night you may wake up to find she's gone out to do just that."

Goliath sighed heavily. "I know. By the Dragon, we visited so many places around the world in our quest, we lost count of our stops long before it was over; that should have been enough to satisfy anyone's wanderlust! But Angela…." He sighed again and shook his head.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Much later, Elisa would be terribly embarrassed to find out that she'd fallen asleep in the middle of Griff's recounting of their quest. But the gargoyles merely smiled and Griff lowered his voice a bit, knowing that his kin could still hear him easily, even over Elisa's soft snores as she curled up against Goliath's broad chest. He tenderly enfolded her with a wing and ever-so-gently stroked her hair as he listened to the remainder of Griff's tale, his and Arthur's adventures in Spain just before hearing of the Scrolls of Merlin. "So, two weeks after hopping aboard a freighter out of Liverpool, here we are!" Griff near-whispered with a grin. "And after we've a look at those scrolls, then we'll decide where to go next."

"There's not enough time left for that tonight," Goliath said quietly but with surety as he glanced at the clock on the wall. "By the time we could get you past the museum's security measures and into the vault those scrolls are supposed to be stored in, it would be perilously close to dawn. Tomorrow night, we'll see about aiding you."

Then Broadway spoke up, sounding both eager and embarrassed. "And, um, in return, maybe you could, um… read them to us?"

Goliath colored a bit and coughed into his fist before admitting, "We tried to read them ourselves once, after Macbeth said the scrolls were full of stories instead of spells. But while I can read both English and Latin, I'm not at all conversant in ancient Welsh." The clan had concluded with disappointment that only Macbeth, world traveler over the centuries, would be able to read the scrolls for them, and at the time he was anything but a friend to the clan. And by the time he and they had come to a better understanding, the scrolls were locked up in a museum vault.

"Merlin always did prefer to write in that tongue," Arthur said with a smile and a nod. "But yes, once I've read them myself, I'll be happy to translate them for you. If we can bring along one of those voice-keeping devices-"

"A tape recorder," Griff interjected wryly.

"Then I'll be happy to give Merlin's tales a proper telling," Arthur finished. (And if, in the process, he happened to forget to translate a few of the more embarrassing bits of his exploits, he was sure Merlin would understand.)

Shortly after that, Goliath carefully rearranged Elisa's position, still sleeping in his embrace, and stood up with her in his arms as he said softly to their guests, "If you will excuse me, it's time I took Elisa to bed."

"No offense, Goliath, but I really think she needs to sleep right now," Brooklyn whispered with a grin, then yelped when Goliath's, Broadway's and Angela's tails all slapped him across the beak.

The yelp roused Elisa, who stirred and muttered something incomprehensible. Goliath whispered as he strode out of the room, "Ssshh, beloved; I'm taking you home now. Just rest."

Arthur and Griff were both silent until he'd left their range of hearing. Then Griff said carefully, "From his words, that crack you just made, and the cracks you just got, I take it Elisa is more than just a friend to the clan now?"

"Well, they haven't announced anything yet," Brooklyn said ruefully as he rubbed his aching beak and ignored the others' glares, "But yeah, we're pretty sure. C'mon, guys, it's even more obvious than my beak!"

"Hmm. Remind me before we leave to give you my clan's post address; those two would probably like to strike up a friendship with our clan's historian. We've had a human-gargoyle pairing, ourselves; a male from the generation before mine, Argus, once fell in love with Deirdre Marten, one of the humans caretakers I mentioned."

"How wonderful! Were they happily mated?" Angela asked with shining eyes.

"They were, as I recall, though she died of old age even before Goliath and I met and I was chucked forward half a century. Argus is dead now, too; passed on less than a week after I arrived in this decade, barely enough time for a hello-and-goodbye. But our current historian's one of his rookery brothers, and he might be willing to share his memories of them; it might help your pair through the rough bits they're going to be facing, if they want to make a real go of it." And for just a moment, Griff looked very sad and very wistful, as he stared off into space. Rather than ask him what memories he was seeing just then, the clan decided to change the subject to something else.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Goliath landed gently on Elisa's balcony, with her still asleep in his arms, there was a single light still burning in the kitchen. He quickly tapped in the disabling code for the alarm with his tail, glad he'd practiced doing that the last time he'd visited, then grunted as he fumbled with that tail underneath one of the potted plants for the key to the door. But by the time he had it out and was trying to maneuver it into the keyhole, the door clicked and opened from the inside. Peter Maza stood there in the doorway, his face expressionless.

"Elisa fell asleep at the castle," Goliath whispered. Even though it was obvious, he felt the need to say something to her father, feeling more than a little on the defensive at the moment. He quickly slid the key back under the potted plant as Peter stepped aside to let them in.

"Diane fell asleep here as well," Peter whispered as he gestured at his wife, currently curled up on the sofa with her shoes off and a blanket draped over her. "I came over to make sure she was all right when she didn't come home on time, but I'd rather she stayed here than went home; she's obsessed with getting everything done in time for the wedding, and she'd probably be coming right back here as soon as she woke up, whether she was really awake enough to drive or not."

"So that's where Elisa got her stubbornness from," Goliath whispered with a small smile as he carried her to the bedroom.

"She gets it from both of us," Peter admitted with a small, rueful smile of his own as he followed Goliath.

Peter looked on in silence as Goliath gently laid Elisa down on the bed and removed her shoes, before pulling the covers over her, tucking them under her chin like she was a small child again. But Peter doubted rather strongly that Goliath was feeling 'fatherly' towards Elisa, as he softly stroked her hair one last time and whispered, "Sleep well," before getting up from his crouch by the bed and leaving the room.

Once they were outside the bedroom, Peter wordlessly gestured for Goliath to follow him out to the balcony. They both knew it was past time that they had a talk, and the balcony would be quieter for the sake of the females sleeping in the bedroom and living room.

Still dressed for the warm interior, Peter found himself wishing he'd thought to grab a coat as he stood and shivered on the balcony, but he stubbornly refused to go back inside for one; he supposed ruefully that the ol' man was trying to act tough in front of his daughter's boyfriend again. Goliath seemed to understand, because his lips quirked in a small smile as he reached under another potted plant for a thick square of folded material, and shook out a canvas tarpaulin as he said, "My hide is far thicker than yours due to my very nature, but even I can tell it's cold outside. This will help ward off the wind."

Peter accepted the tarpaulin with poor grace, but wrapped it around his shoulders. He noticed the fishing weights sewn onto the edges, and eyed them curiously. Why would anyone need to weight down a tarpaulin like… oh. He looked at Goliath suspiciously, and again the gargoyle seemed to know his thoughts, because he nodded soberly and admitted, "I sleep under it occasionally, on those days when I roost here instead of with my clan."

"So… you and Elisa have more than just friendship going now, don't you."

"Far more."

Peter took a deep breath and steeled himself before asking, "How much more?"

Goliath took a deep breath too, and released it with a sigh. He knew full well that he had to go carefully now; these were tricky currents to glide in, but his and Elisa's happiness could well be at stake. "Mr. Maza, I love your daughter more than life itself. To save Elisa, I would willingly let myself be rendered to shards and gravel. For her sake, I would rip my own wings from my back if I had to. I love her more than I would have thought possible, before waking up in this millennium; she is human and I am gargoyle, but she is the other half of my soul."

Peter looked at him, and knew that Goliath meant every word he was saying. He hadn't heard such an impassioned declaration of love since the night he'd asked Mr. Don Taylor for his daughter Diane's hand in marriage. Almost everyone they knew, with the exception of the Chavez family, had been convinced that they'd never make it last; they came from two different worlds, her from a strong Southern Baptist heritage and him from a Navajo reservation. But nearly thirty years later, he and Diane were still happily married… And maybe, just maybe, this gargoyle and Elisa, despite coming from two even more different worlds, had what it takes to make a relationship last that long. He told Goliath what he was thinking, finishing with, "If you do, then I'm happy for you both." But he couldn't help adding, "Of course, if you ever hurt her in any way, you'll have more than the Quarrymen to worry about."

Goliath half-chuckled. "I don't doubt it." And they talked for a while more, about Elisa and gargoyle traditions and Maza family traditions and love.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

At five minutes before dawn, Lexington came grumbling out of the nursery. "Somebody owes me big-time for this," he growled, looking at his tail-tip, which showed signs of abuse. "And you can't tell me that kid doesn't have carnivorous tastes."

"Ye actually let him teethe on yer tail!" Hudson chortled as he headed for his perch.

"It was the only way to shut him up! And I didn't even have a chance to check my e-mail or any chat rooms tonight; my buddies on-line probably think I've lost interest in discussing hang-gliding," he grumbled again as he went to tell Owen that Alex was all his, and welcome to it, before heading out to join his clan on the battlements for sunrise.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The next night, as they went back to the station after investing a scene, Matt Bluestone was very, very surprised to find Elisa tossing him her car keys. "Here you go; don't get too used to it, and try not to hit anything, okay?" Elisa said through a yawn as she got in on the passenger side of her Fairlane. Once seated, she grabbed for her coffee thermos and travel mug like they were worth more than gold, and began gulping down more coffee. She'd already gone through the coffee she'd brought from home; this was from the station's coffeepot. It looked like an oil slick and tasted worse, but right now she desperately needed the caffeine.

"What's going on, partner?" Matt said, staring at her in surprise, and more than a little worry. "I sent you home early and covered for you last night, just so you could get some more shut-eye, and here you are again with bags under your eyes that I could pack for a two-day trip!"

"Gee, thanks for the compliment," Elisa said wryly, before smothering another yawn. "Ah, it's just crunch time at home right now, with Mom going bonkers trying to get everything perfect for my brother's wedding. Now she's making not just the clothes but the altar cloth and runners and suchlike, and she's been spending hours at my place with her sewing machine, and having me run out to get more fabric glue, pearl buttons and crap. And when it isn't her, it's the Quarrymen and guests for the gargoyles and God-knows-what's-next."

"Yeah, weddings are always stressful." Matt was silent for a moment, then said casually, "So, when's the wedding? And by the way, why have you been keeping your brother's return a secret from all his old buddies at the station?"

Elisa coughed and spat coffee all over the dashboard. Matt hurriedly pulled over, and grabbed for a handful of napkins to mop up the mess as Elisa sputtered and tried to regain her composure. After nearly a minute, she wiped the last of the coffee off her face and the tears from her eyes, to see Matt looking at her with a mixture of sympathy for her plight and hurt anger; he'd caught her with another secret she'd been keeping from everybody, and she knew he'd caught her. She took a deep breath, had another spasm of coughing, then tried again. "If I tell you, it's another secret you'll have to keep as well. Nobody else at the station can know, not even Captain Chavez."

Matt smiled lopsidedly. "I've gotten pretty good at keeping secrets lately." Lately, between the Illuminati and the gargoyles, he'd been keeping more information under his hat than hair. (He suppressed a wince at the thought of that miniscule bald spot he'd seen forming in the mirror last week; dammit, he was too young to be going bald already!)

"Yeah, I suppose you have." Elisa sighed. "All right. It starts with a total sleazebag named Dr. Anton Sevarius…"

It took over half an hour for her to tell him everything. The mutates, the Labyrinth, even the gargoyle clones. She finished with telling about the baby on the way and the wedding plans, and when she did, he regarded her with something close to amazement. If he didn't know already about the gargoyles and Xanatos' involvement, he might have thought she was spinning a world-class whopper, but too much of it fitted in with what he already knew was true. He realized now why she'd hated Xanatos so much, even more than Tony Dracon and Tomas Brode combined. It was purest irony that Xanatos, who now seemed to be trying to mend his former sleazebag ways, had been just a few weeks too late with his cure for the mutates. But rather than point out any of the obvious, he just said, "No wonder you've been worn out. Look, once we get back and write up this last investigation, see if you can't sneak out early again; it's hard to investigate anything if you can't keep your eyes open. But, um, would you mind asking your brother if he'll issue another invite?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Once she'd gotten back to her apartment, Elisa yawned prodigiously as she took off her jacket and put her gun and holster in the gun safe. "Hi, Mom. How-yawwwnnn!-how's it coming?"

Still sitting at her sewing machine and attempting, through eyes at half-mast, to re-thread the machine with a new color of thread, Diane Maza said wearily, "Finished the pants, finished the jackets, finished the altar cloth and runners, and getting close to finished on Maggie's dress. You just missed her by ten minutes or so; she came here for her last fitting. And Xanatos called, asked if you'd call the castle when you get in; something about scrolls and a castaway."

"Castaway!" Elisa forgot her weariness and grabbed for the phone. She didn't have the number for Xanatos' office handy, but she already knew the number for the phone in the gargoyles' living quarters. "Hi, Angela, it's Elisa; is Goliath there?… Goliath, my mom took a message to call you; did we find out something about Jon Castaway?"

"Yes, we have," Goliath growled on the other end of the phone. "It seems that Xanatos--eh? Just a moment, Elisa." Then there was a click, and then Elisa heard the familiar slightly-attenuated sounds that indicated the other end was now a speakerphone, and Xanatos explaining to Goliath that in this fashion, Elisa could hear both of them without having to pause to relay questions and answers. Elisa smiled wryly as she thought to herself that it also meant she and Goliath couldn't exchange any sweet nothings once the important information had been passed on. Not that she was apt to do something like that anyway, with her mother sitting not ten feet away from her.

"I hired a few private detectives to investigate Castaway," Xanatos told her. "People who're possibly your equal for ingenuity and keen insight, but not your, shall we say, high level of scruples. And one of them brought back to me this evening a few pictures that had been taken in Castaway's apartment. Guess who has multiple sets of false ID, including a set with a press pass for a man named Jon Carter?"

As tired as she was, it took a second or two for the light bulb to click. Then Elisa swore violently enough for her mother to sit bolt upright and give her a disapproving eye, not that she cared at the moment. "Jon Canmore, the third Hunter! I can't believe we didn't figure it out before now! What the hell kind of detective am I, to be fooled by a scrawny mustache and fake accent!"

"Do not disparage yourself over this, Elisa," Goliath growled. "I didn't see it either, and I've fought him both as Hunter and Quarryman. It's not simply his accent that has changed; his entire way of moving in combat has altered as well. Before, and even at the confrontation at St. Damien's, he exhibited a hesitation, a reluctance to kill, but now… even the Vikings of old would applaud his thirst for our blood."

"I think our next step is to contact Jason Canmore, in the physical rehab facility he's in," Xanatos announced. "If, as you told me, he's truly changed in his attitude towards the gargoyles, maybe he can get his brother to see the light."

"Maybe," Elisa sighed, suddenly weary again. "It's worth a shot, at least." But privately, she doubted it. She knew already that Jon blamed the gargoyles for his brother's paralysis, even though he'd been the one to fire the shot that had crippled Jason and nearly killed him. If Jon admitted to himself that the gargoyles weren't all monsters, then that would mean admitting to himself that he'd been the one at fault in that fight… and he'd deny that even if he had his face rubbed in it. Just like Demona denied her own guilty part played in the massacre at Wyvern, and in Macbeth's tragedy, and so much more… But maybe, there was a chance. If both she and Jason could talk to him together, and she brought along her scrapbook… the same scrapbook she'd used to convince Jason that day, just before the confrontation at St. Damien's…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Did the lack of oxygen kill a few too many of yer brains cells, woman! How can ye even think of defending such monsters! If not for me, ye would have drowned, and that's a fact!" Jason had exploded at her while they stood by the side of the road, trying to hitch a ride back to Manhattan. Jason Conover's smooth Midwestern accent was now almost completely overwhelmed by the Scottish burr of Jason Canmore's childhood; he wasn't attempting to hide it at all anymore.

"If not for you and your family, I would never have been in danger in the first place!" Elisa had shouted back. "The only reason I was there at all was to keep Goliath from either killing you or getting killed by you! He was too angry to think straight when he went off alone to confront you, but wouldn't you be just a _teensy_ bit upset, if somebody first tried to kill your daughter, then blew up your home!"

Sixty-odd cars had passed them already, and from the way they were shouting at each other, Elisa wasn't a bit surprised; nobody sane would want to pick up two people in their obvious state of mind. And standing there shouting at each other might be raising their body temperatures a bit, but not enough to counteract the freezing-cold water still soaking their clothes. She blew out an exasperated breath and decided to change tactics. "First things first; we get ourselves a ride. Then when we get back to Manhattan, I've got some stuff in my apartment to show you. Here, hold these," as she took off her jacket and shoulder holster. "And go sit down on the other side of that boulder; you won't be as noticeable." And once he had, she stood facing the oncoming traffic, threw out her chest with it's soaking-wet T-shirt and bra plastered to her breasts, and did her best to look utterly helpless, adorable and sexy as she gestured with a thumb and an out-thrust hip. _Going my way_?

Within sixty seconds, an eighteen-wheeler pulled over for her. The driver, a young man with a scraggly blond beard and hair, rolled down the window and called out, not quite leering, "Where you headed, miss?"

Jason knew his cue and popped up, saying brightly, "We're going to Manhattan! It's ever so kind of you to be willing to help out my sister and me!"

The driver frowned at the unexpected extra, but couldn't quite bring himself to just drive off and leave them there, so he'd rather ungraciously given them a ride back to Manhattan. Once there, they'd taken a cab to her apartment. Elisa took one step inside the door and froze, mentally kicking herself; she hadn't thought about where the gargoyles were most apt to roost that day. There they all were, sitting stone ducks in her apartment, and she'd brought a Hunter home with her!

Jason swore violently as he looked over her shoulder and laid eyes on them, and shoved her to one side as he charged in, probably intending to grab one of the table lamps or something else that was heavy and start bashing away. But in his haste, he neglected to think about another resident of her apartment: Cagney. The cat shrieked like a banshee when he stepped on his tail, and shot out from under his foot with a violent lunge. Startled, Jason lost his footing and fell down, and before he could get back up again Elisa straddled him and whipped out her handcuffs.

"So is that yer plan, to leave me here as easy prey for the monsters when they awaken!" he'd shouted at her as she cuffed his hands behind his back.

"Of course not! I'm just trying to make sure they're not easy prey for you!" as she finished the job and got up, then helped him to his feet. "Now, I want you to look at them. Really look at them!" as she turkey-walked him up to where they were clustered. "Yes, they're different from us, they've got wings and tails and funny bumps on their heads, but what do these folks look like, right now?"

Jason had eyed the clan as they stood there, some of them slumped over, some with their faces buried in their hands, all of them with grief etched deep in their not-quite-human features, and said slowly, "They… they look sad."

"Yeah, and do you know why? Because they think one of their friends, namely me, is dead!" And with that, she walked him into the dining room. She uncuffed one of his hands so he could eat, but quickly cuffed the other end to the table leg so he couldn't get away from her and threaten the gargoyles again. "How do you like your eggs?"

While she made breakfast for them both, Jason tried to explain the righteousness of his cause to her, of his family's millennium-long quest to destroy 'the Demon'. He finished with, "My ancestors have compiled a list longer than I am tall of all the atrocities that Demon has committed, her and her monstrous kind!"

"And you know what? I can add at least a half-dozen atrocities to that list of yours, without even having to think hard!" Elisa said as she served him his scrambled eggs.

He'd been opening his mouth for an angry retort, when her words registered and he just left it hanging open for a moment. Then he said weakly, "What?"

"Demona is my enemy, too; she's tried to kill me at least a half-dozen times! She's shot at me, tried to beat me to a pulp, tried to poison me, cast spells on me; you name it, she's tried it!" Actually, the spells had been cast on the entire city, but she figured now wasn't the time to nit-pick.

"Th-then… why on God's green earth were you defending her kind earlier?"

"Not _her _kind, Jason; my friends are anything but! The other gargoyles are her enemies, too! Do you really think that psycho bitch has only tried to kill humans! She's utterly insane, she'll kill anyone in her way, including other gargoyles that are trying to defend the humans she hates! Look, here's what I know about her." And with that, she told him everything she knew of Demona. Everything she'd witnessed, and everything Goliath and the others had told her about; again, she was glad Goliath liked to use her for a sounding board when he was troubled by something. Not only did it show how much he trusted her, but it gave her plenty of data to add to Jason's list; enough to see that, regarding Demona, his ancestors were right on the money. She decided not to mention what she knew about Demona's involvement with Macbeth, and the fact that she might have happily stayed at Macbeth's side as advisor and ally, and friendly to the local humans there, if Duncan Canmore hadn't attacked with his English allies. The whole point of this was to find some mutual grounds for agreement, to better be able to change his mind on other matters.

"Aye, much of that sounds like the tales my father and grandfather told me," Jason said grimly. "Treacherous to her blackened and rotted core."

"No argument there," Elisa agreed as she wolfed down her eggs with a grimace; they'd gone cold during her story.

"But this other news, that she's even an enemy to her own kind… How certain are ye of that, truly?"

"As certain as I am of the reason your family's still hunting her, after a thousand years of trying to kill her. Ever wonder why you can't do it?"

"Some of our family has said she's sold her soul to Satan, in order to be his eternal pawn here on Earth, wreaking destruction at his bidding. Of course, others have said her kind have no souls to begin with."

"Without getting into anything theological, I can tell you why she's still around. This may sound nuts, but she's under a spell, bound to another immortal. The only way she can be killed is for the two of them to kill each other. God's truth; we got the story straight from the other guy himself." She paused to smile wryly as she pointed a fork at him. "Y'know, if your family _hadn't_ been chasing her around the globe all this time, and given her a chance to settle into one place, he probably would have found her by now and ended both their lives. He's sick of immortality, outliving all his loved ones, and he's been trying to track her down for a final battle for centuries!"

Jason could only stare at her, utterly appalled. "Y… ye're serious?"

"As homicide. I'm also serious about the other gargoyles being her enemies. Her enemies, because they're friendly to humans in general! Wait right here; I want to show you something." And with that, she'd dug into the bottom of her closet and pulled out her scrapbook.

Not even Goliath knew she had been keeping this, a scrapbook of their exploits with regards to crimefighting. Several pages held photocopies of police reports, which listed an 'unknown citizen' as having left a criminal unconscious and/or tied up for them to find. Several more held clippings from the National Enquirer and other tabloid rags, where 'avenging angels' had saved citizens from muggers and worse. Next to each entry, Elisa had written down the name of the gargoyle involved, and any other pertinent details that the 'official' report had left out. None of it was evidence that would last more than ten seconds in court, but Elisa thought that someday, if Captain Chavez or the other police officers ever found out about the people secretly living in the clocktower over the station, Elisa could show them this in hopes of persuading them to let her friends stay. Of course, now that the clocktower was destroyed, it was largely a moot point, but maybe she could use it to persuade Jason of their good intentions.

Jason had looked through the scrapbook. He'd asked questions, she'd given answers. They'd argued, nit-picked, called each other blind idiots, and so on and so forth until almost an hour till sunset, but Jason had finally agreed that she'd been right and he'd been wrong. His whole family had been wrong, all those times they'd found 'the Demon' with a nest of gargoyles and wreaked havoc there, trying to destroy all of them but somehow always missing her. When he'd mentioned the other clans of gargoyles, burned to death or riddled with arrows or shattered in their stone sleep, Elisa had closed her eyes and told herself not to lose her lunch. They were dead, and she could do nothing for them now. But if she could prevent more from being killed…

Jason agreed to help persuade his brother and sister to call off the hunt for the other gargoyles. "We'll take that scrapbook of yours to the apartment I share with them; perhaps between the two of us, we'll be able to persuade them. Actually, the only one we'll likely have to persuade will be my sister, Robin; some of what ye've been saying is what my brother Jon has been trying to tell us all along. I wish now I'd listened to him afore this!"

So they left a note for the clan on the kitchen table, figuring that Broadway would find it when he dug into her refrigerator for something to eat, though Elisa hoped to be back before they woke up. But when they got to Jason's apartment, they found it empty, and got caught in a traffic jam on the way back. By the time they got back to her place, it was well after sunset and the gargoyles had woken up and left already, with no indications that they had read her note. "Blast! Now where could they have gone!" as Elisa, frustrated, kicked at a stray stone shard.

"Likely hunting my brother and sister," Jason said wryly. "Who're no doubt hunting for them! But after the tape we made and broadcast last night, the whole city will be on the lookout for them; likely the easiest way to find them will be to listen to the police scanner in your car and head for the loudest ruckus."

Elisa reluctantly agreed, and so they'd gotten back into the Fairlane. And not long after sunset, Elisa's scanner had picked up news of the battle at St, Damien's. When they'd found traffic clogged and snarled beyond moving nearly five blocks away from the ruined cathedral, not even responding to her slap-on siren, they'd sworn and jumped out of the Fairlane to go forward on foot. Then they'd seen an ambulance worming its way through the crowd; it was standard procedures to call one in when there was a threat of riot, and there most definitely was a riot forming outside the cathedral. Elisa had dashed right up to it, whipped out her badge and shouted for the driver, one she knew, to give them a lift up to St. Damien's. "Dammit, Jimmy, lives are at stake and we have to get there fast!" And Jimmy had given them both a lift there. Then, less than half an hour later, he'd been transporting Jason to the hospital in a race to save his life, after being shot by his own brother…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Detective, are you still with us?" Xanatos said over the phone, sounding a bit bemused.

Elisa jerked a bit, realizing she'd been woolgathering while still on the phone. "Oh, sorry. What did you say?"

"I said, on a positive note, I did some talking to the curators of the museum that's holding the Scrolls of Merlin. Rather than our friends risking breaking and entering charges to get King Arthur the information he needs, I've convince the museum to release the scrolls into my custody for a few days, so my 'expert' can have a shot at translating them. King Arthur's going to record a transcript of his translation for them once he's had look for himself; this way, the museum benefits as well." Xanatos sounded quite pleased with himself, and she had to admit it was a better idea than the gargoyles' idea of just sneaking in there. "We'll be getting the scrolls tomorrow, and Arthur has agreed to give us a reading two nights from now, the night after Derek and Maggie's wedding. Want to come over for a night of storytelling?"

His voice more faint but still clear, Broadway chimed in enthusiastically from wherever he was in the castle's living room. "Come on, Elisa, it'll be great! Almost like having a real bard come visiting again!"

Elisa smiled, considering that traveling bards and minstrels had been highly prized for entertainment back in medieval times; this was probably more exciting for them than getting tickets to the NBA playoffs had once been for Derek. She had the night off after the wedding, too, so she agreed to be there for the reading. And as she hung up a little while later, she reflected wryly that she must really be living in a fairy tale; it wasn't every girl who was going to have a king telling her a bedtime story!

NEXT: WEDDING BELLES


	6. Wedding Belles

**LIFE GOES ON**

_**Revelations of the Labyrinth, Part 5 (Wedding Belles)**_

By Kimberly T.

Brentwood climbed up the wall, a large plastic sack clenched in his teeth and slung over his shoulder, and another one wrapped in his tail. Once he'd reached the ceiling, he shifted to slowly scuttle across it like a giant spider, carefully sinking each talon into the rock for maximum purchase, till he reached the center of the room. There he stopped, and his huge red eyes looked upside-down and questioningly at the person standing below.

"That's just the right spot!" Ruth said encouragingly as she looked up at him. "Now, start with the streamers!"

Brentwood nodded, then swung his tail up near his head so he could get at the sack dangling from it. Tightening his grip with one hand and both feet, he eased the other hand free of the stone and reached into the sack. After a bit of fumbling, he pulled out a thick nail that had been stuck through the ends of six white crepe-paper streamers, still bound with rubber bands into fist-sized cylinders. He set the point of the nail against the ceiling, then shoved it in with all his strength, sinking it into the rock over an inch deep. Once it was secure, he carefully hooked a talon in each rubber band to pull it off, so the streamers could unwind and fall to the ground.

"Perfect!" Ruth said as the streamers cascaded down. "Now, add on the bells! Remember, start with the tape…"

Brentwood grinned as best he could with a sack still clenched in his teeth, then shook the empty sack off his tail so he could take the other one out of his mouth and hang it there. Then he reached in and pulled out a roll of Scotch tape. Grimacing and gripping the tape in his jaws, he pulled off a six-inch length of it, then stuck the tape on his nearest talon. Then he reached in again and pulled out a large white paper bell, already unfolded to its full size. It took a bit of maneuvering and mumbling, but he was able to get the tape over the end of the string coming out of the bell, and tape the bell in place on the nail. Then he repeated the entire process with another bell.

"Pretty!" Malibu said admiringly as he stood next to Ruth, looking up from below. Burbank and Hollywood, standing with him, agreed. Delilah called out encouragingly, "You doing good, Brentwood!"

Once he'd finished attaching the second bell, Brentwood looked down at them with a grin and a thumbs-up, like he'd seen Claw do a few nights ago. Then he detached from the ceiling and flipped over, gliding down to them and landing on his feet. "Taa-daah!"

"Yay, Brentwood!" his siblings said as they gave him hugs of congratulations for his excellent job. They'd all wanted to do it, but Ruth had decided that since he was the lightest of them all, he'd have the easiest time hanging upside down without falling off. But Ruth had promised them that they would each have important parts to play in decorating the room for the big wedding tomorrow night, and now they looked at her eagerly to see what came next.

Ruth added her own thanks and congratulations, then said, "Now we're going to finish putting up the streamers. Here, each one of you take a streamer, very carefully, and back up a few feet to give yourselves room… and now we're going to twist them, to make them prettier. Just turn it, like so, and turn it again, and keep turning… Not so fast, Delilah, keep pace with your brothers so they all come out even… See how pretty they're becoming? All right, that's enough twists. Hollywood, I said that's enough twists, so you stop now. No, it's okay; just very carefully turn it back two times… And now they're ready to hang up. And we're going to do this in two teams, so everyone can help out. Here, Malibu, you take three pieces of tape… Now your turn, Delilah… Yes, Malibu, they look funny hanging off your beak, but it'll probably hurt a little when you pull them off."

She then directed Brentwood to gather the streamers from Malibu and Hollywood without tangling or unwinding them, then had Malibu stand on Hollywood's shoulders in one corner of the room. "Now, Malibu, be careful not to claw your brother's shoulders. And Hollywood, you'll have to hold yourself and him very steady, so he doesn't slip and fall."

"I can do it," Hollywood said confidently as he took a firm grip on his sibling's high-arched feet.

"Don't squeeze so hard!" Malibu complained, but when Brentwood stretched up as high as he could with one of the streamers, Malibu was able to wrap his tail around it and pass it up to his hands without falling off. The two gargoyles together were just tall enough to reach all the way to the high ceiling, and Malibu taped his streamer up in the corner and said proudly when he was done, "Taa-daah!"

"Very good, Malibu! And you held him just right, Hollywood!" Ruth praised them both. "Now, Delilah and Burbank, it's your turn."

Over on the far side of the room, taping down a long extension cord as they ran it along the wall, Peter Maza paused to look at the decorating gargoyles and commented to his son, "I could bring our old stepladder down here for you."

"Nah, the 'kids' probably think this way's more fun. Not to mention, our rickety old ladder wouldn't last ten seconds under Hollywood's weight," Derek said ruefully as he uncoiled the extension cord.

Beth came in lugging a huge speaker in her arms, smiling wryly. "Derek, I gotta tell you, I'm gonna miss being able to win my floor's Saturday night 'stereo wars' hands-down with this setup!" When Derek had first 'gone missing', her parents had paid the rent on his apartment for three months before reluctantly letting it go, packing up his belongings and storing them in their home. As much as Beth missed her brother too, she'd persuaded their parents to let her take his stereo setup with her when she'd returned to Arizona for her sophomore year of college, rather than let it just sit in the garage and collect dust. She had promised faithfully to return it with a smile whenever Derek showed his face again, but when Derek finally did return to them, showing a very different face, his primo stereo system had not been uppermost on anyone's mind.

Only when Diane had said wistfully, after informing Beth over the phone about the wedding, that it would be nice to have some live music for the ceremony, did Beth remember and volunteer the stereo. She assured her mother that with this setup's incredible volume and high fidelity, the music would be almost better than live! (Diane had privately thought she was missing the point, but had asked her to pack and bring it all with her anyway when she flew in Saturday for the wedding.)

Derek said with a sigh of reminiscence, "Yeah, I always had to be careful about playing it on days the landlord was around. But I tell you, it'll be perfect for the wedding reception! Claw and Dana will love it!"

Beth looked at him questioningly. "Um… I thought Mom said Dana was deaf?"

"Deaf as a post, as Grandpa Taylor would say," Derek said with a grin at both hers and his father's puzzled expressions. "But trust me, they'll enjoy it too; you'll see tomorrow night. Hey, did you find the right music? Mom said you were bringing that too."

"Got 'em right here," Beth said as she set the speaker down and pulled a series of cassette tapes out of her jacket pockets. "Recorded 'em myself from the CD collections of some of the music students at the university. Lohengrin's Bridal Chorus, Beethoven's Ode to Joy, Pachebel's Canon in D, Chopin's Nocturne in E, Brandenburg's Concerto in G, and a lot of other alphabetical classical stuff for the traditional 'whitebread' wedding. And after Mom called again, I even sweet-talked some buddies of a buddy into recording an instrumental version of Noel Stookey's 'The Wedding Song' for your guy down here to sing along with." She thought to herself that that was the nice thing about college students; a lot of them would do great things for only a six-pack or two of beer. But she knew better than to say that with her dad present, knowing how many of his old friends back on the reservation had poured their lives down the drain with booze.

"Ramone will appreciate that, and so will Maggie," as he accepted the tapes from her.

"Did he really used to be a professional lounge singer?" Beth asked curiously.

"That's what he says, and until he says otherwise that's what we'll believe. Down here, Beth, we don't pry too much into what people used to do before they came down here. If they want to tell us, we listen, but otherwise we don't ask. Sometimes it's just too painful for them to talk about." Derek shuddered at a memory. "I've heard some stories down here that made me realize there are actually much worse people on the planet than Xanatos, maybe even worse than Sevarius."

Beth stared at him. "Worse than the man who… Don't tell me any of those stories, okay?"

"No problem. C'mon, let's finish hooking this up and run a sound check."

While they were hooking things up, Beth said, "By the way, the wedding invitation arrived in the mail on Friday. Excellent work; who did the hand-lettered calligraphy?"

"That was Susanna; I'd introduce you to her, but she's up top scrounging right now. She surprised us Monday night with twenty hand-lettered invitations and envelopes right out of the blue. She told us she'd sold a mirror to an antique shop that morning to get money for the right kind of paper and pen, then spent all day getting twenty invitations just perfect. I tell you, we have some of the most interesting people down here… and a lot of them really like us just the way we are, fur and wings and all. Blows my mind sometimes."

"Aw, what's not to love about you?" Beth teased. "You were always such a sweet guy, and now you're cuddly too!"

Derek looked at her sourly. "I am _not_ cuddly."

Claw came in then, hefting one of the wooden benches they'd been putting together from scrap wood and torn-apart pallets they'd sneaked away from a warehouse. They'd decided to build sturdy benches as seats for the chapel, rather than bring in their mixed assortment of dilapidated chairs just for the one occasion. Father Sullivan had been making discreet suggestions about making the chapel permanent, so the priest had a place down here to conduct services in the future.

Derek wasn't thrilled about the idea of having a Catholic chapel down here, worrying that it would make some of their non-Catholics uneasy in their own home, not to mention what the priest might say when he found out that, last time they'd done an informal census, they had a family of Buddhists, three Muslims, two Jews and a pair of Wiccans in residence. But he was hardly going to say no to the man before he performed their wedding ceremony! Beside, the average folding chair wouldn't last any longer under Goliath's butt than his dad's rickety old stepladder would. So they'd put the benches together (and Derek had decided not to ask where Tony and Billy had gotten the power tools from), and had load-tested each one by having Hollywood stand on them, before sanding and painting them a nice solid hides-the-dirt-well brown.

Claw put the bench in a row with the others he'd brought in earlier, then signed that Father Sullivan had come down for another visit. Derek was a little surprised, considering it was something like three o'clock in the morning now; a little late for another one of those premarital counseling sessions they'd been doing, not to mention the good father had said last time that he was satisfied that they were right for each other. Well, maybe the guy was a chronic insomniac, or was just too excited to sleep. God knew he himself sure was; he was getting married tomorrow! And he was going to be a father! Sometimes he just wanted to pinch himself, but decided against it in case he actually woke up.

Father Sullivan came in right after Claw, smiling as he looked about him with his good eye. "Some very nice touches! Just right for a family wedding and an informal reception." The priest thought for a moment about the wedding he'd officiated at that Saturday morning, for one of the wealthier families in his congregation; for that wedding, the decorators had also come in the night before. They had been a professional decorating team led by a professional wedding planner, and had nearly wallpapered and carpeted the entire church in expensive flowers and satin ribbons and bows, probably a few thousand dollars' worth of materials. Not counting the decorations he'd brought down a few days ago, leftovers from other weddings that hadn't been taken away or tossed out, he doubted the total spent by the residents down here came to more than ten dollars. But everything had been put up with genuine caring for the brides and grooms, and that always made it priceless.

However, that did remind him of something he wanted to tell Derek and Claw. "I've spoken with the bride and groom of the wedding I'll be performing tomorrow afternoon, without giving specifics about you. They're more than happy to give to you the flowers from their own wedding, all except the bouquets of course. They also asked me to tell you that they hope your lives together will be as happy as theirs will be."

"That's nice of them," Derek said with a smile. "Wish I could thank 'em personally. That leaves only the bouquets, and Dana said she had that covered too, though she wouldn't say how." He cocked a furry eyebrow at Claw, who just shrugged with a carefully blank expression, not giving away anything even if he actually knew. Derek and Maggie still didn't know a lot about Dana, except that she'd been deaf since at least early childhood, probably from birth, and had a strength of will that could nearly turn back tides.

Claw probably knew more about Dana, since they were lovers and soon to be married in the same ceremony as him and Maggie, but if he did he wasn't sharing it with them. But heck, they still didn't know a lot about Claw's past, either; not even his real name! (They'd asked him once or twice, but he'd just shaken his head and written that it didn't matter now.) However, they knew he was loyal to the home they'd made down here, and kindly and gentle with others; more than that, they really didn't need to know.

But Derek admitted to himself that he was extremely curious about just who and where Claw and Dana had given their wedding invitations to. Claw had scrounged a stamp for the invitation and envelope he'd taken from the stack, so Derek surmised that he'd sent it to somebody out of town, but Dana had just taken five of them and disappeared for most of a day. Neither of them had to be told about maintaining the Labyrinth's existence as a secret from the general populace, knowing it as well as Derek and Maggie did, so Derek wasn't much worried about finding unwelcome guests and media down here tomorrow night. But still, he wondered…

Maggie came in the room, her face troubled for an instant before she saw the others; then she smiled so quickly and brilliantly, nobody was quite sure they'd seen the previous expression. The gargoyle clones crowded around her, excitedly pointing out all the decorating they'd done, and she praised them for their efforts. "It's all just beautiful! It looks like we're almost ready for tomorrow night."

"Hi, honey," As Derek came up to her and gave her a quick nuzzling. "How'd the fitting go?"

"Just fine; the dress is almost finished now, and she'll bring it down with her tomorrow night." She held up the box she'd brought with her and addressed the 'kids' again. "Diane gave me the altar cloth and aisle runner; do you want to help us put them in place too?"

The gargoyles were very happy to help out, and Ruth and Father Sullivan showed them where they were to go. Derek took advantage of the distraction to gently guide Maggie into the next room, and ease the door shut. Once they were alone, he said quietly, "Can you talk about it?"

"About what?" She smiled at him, but he didn't buy it this time.

"About what's bothering you. C'mon, we're getting married tomorrow night. Can't you trust your future husband, even with bad news? You know the lines: 'for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health'…"

" 'Till Death do us part.' I know." She sighed. "I just… before _this_," as she gestured vaguely at her mutated body, "whenever I envisioned myself getting married, I thought I'd be going down the aisle on my daddy's arm. But…"

"But you haven't even told your family about _this_ yet, let alone about _us_," Derek finished gently. "Well… y'know, it's still not too late to call them. Yeah, it'll be one helluva shock, to find out everything at once, but at least they'll know you're still alive. And that you'll be back to normal in a few years, once they develop a cure for Junior," as he gently rested a hand on her abdomen, caressing their child within. "I'll bet they could even come here in time for the wedding, if you called 'em right now; there are planes going from Ohio to New York all the time." He cocked his head at her inquiringly. "Want to go back to Elisa's place and borrow her phone?"

Maggie sadly shook her head. "I can't do that. Derek, my family's pretty straight-laced; there's no way they'll accept me the way I am right now. And there's definitely no way they'll accept all the rest of this," as she waved a hand to indicate their home, "especially not on such short notice. No… I'll wait until we're all cured."

"And then show up on their doorstep years from now with a son-in-law and grandkid they've never even heard of?" Derek clearly doubted that was such a great idea either. "It's your choice, but… Remember what my mom said to me when Elisa brought them down here for the first time? It wasn't the first thing out of her mouth, but it was pretty darn close." In a falsetto imitation of his mother's voice, he said querulously, "Derek, why didn't you come to us with this before now? We've been worried sick about you; we didn't know if you were alive or dead!" Then he continued in his normal voice, "Your parents are probably thinking the same thing; they don't know if you're alive or dead right now. And not knowing is even harder than knowing. Do you really want to keep them wondering and worrying for the next five or six years?"

Maggie swallowed hard, then slowly nodded. In a very tiny voice, she said, "Come with me?"

"Always, sweets. Always."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Half an hour later, they were within view of Elisa's apartment. Maggie was shivering so hard she could barely fly straight, and Derek looked at her in concern. "You're not going to faint on me or anything, are you?"

"N-no. Derek, what if they think I'm lying, that I've gone insane or something?" She had no pictures or proof to send them, and certainly nothing she could send over the phone tonight!

Derek smiled wryly. "If they do, they'll definitely want to come out here, to get you off the streets and into a 'psych' ward if nothing else."

"_That's not funny_!"

"Sorry, honey. Anyway, we're here," as they landed on the balcony together. The lights were still on in the dining room, and Derek's mother was seated there at the dining room table with her sewing machine and yards of white fabric, evidently still working on Maggie's dress. Derek fumbled in his tunic pocket for the disabling code Elisa had given him, and quickly punched it in before tapping with a claw on the glass door.

Diane looked up, startled, and stared at them for a moment; then she quickly came to the door and let them in, with a finger to her lips to indicate the need for quiet. "Elisa got off work early; she's asleep now. What's happened down in the Labyrinth, to bring you up here? And no, you can't see Maggie's wedding dress before the ceremony!"

"Everything's fine, Mom, and I'm not here to get a peek at the dress, really! Maggie wants to borrow Elisa's phone… and call her folks in Ohio."

Diane's eyes went wide for just a moment before she nodded and showed them to the phone. Then she bustled into the bathroom, and came back out and handed Maggie a box of tissues. "Here, dear; you'll probably need these."

Maggie nodded jerkily, her whole body wracked with shivers, as she stood there staring at the phone. Derek snagged a chair from the dining room table and sat down in it, then pulled Maggie into his lap and gave her a hug, whispering, "You can do it, honey." He reached up and took the phone receiver off the wall, then handed it to her. "Do you remember the number?"

She did. She punched in the numbers, then waited, shivering on Derek's lap, as the phone rang on the other end. Finally, she spoke. "H-hi, Mom. It's me. …Maggie."

Though his ear was a good foot or more away from the phone receiver, Derek flinched and laid his ears back, as Maggie jerked in his lap and snatched the phone away from her ear. Even Diane could hear it, though faintly: a feminine voice shrieking at the top of her lungs, "_Maggie?_" Then, much fainter but still audible, as though the other woman was too excited to cover the mouthpiece, "_Bill, it's Maggie! She's alive!"_

Maggie broke down and began sobbing, as Derek hugged her close. "Mom, I'm so sorry I haven't called, I've been so afraid, and I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry…" Derek silently stroked her fur, his sharp ears hearing the sounds of sobs on the other end of the phone as well. Like most men, he really had no clue of what to do with a hysterically crying woman, and he looking pleadingly over at his mother.

Diane nodded and gave a wry smile as she came up to them again. "Here, Maggie; let me talk to her for a moment, while you blow your nose, okay?" Maggie nodded, and handed over the phone while Derek handed her a handful of tissues. She began weeping into them and honking her nose, while Diane said calmly but warmly, "Mrs. Reed? My name's Diane Maza. I'm… I'm the mother of the man who wants to marry your daughter, and persuaded her to call you tonight. She's wanted to before, but she's been too afraid that you'd reject her after what's happened to her, though none of it was her fault." During her little speech, Elisa came wandering out in her PJ's and rubbing her face, probably woken up by Maggie's sobs. She looked at them all curiously for a few moments, until she figured out what was going on by what her mother was saying on the phone. Her eyes went wide, and she sat down on a dining room chair with them.

The woman sounded frantic. "Why; what's happened to my little girl!"

"Well… her physical appearance has changed drastically. You might be unable to recognize her now. Lord knows, I didn't even recognize my own son at first, after it happened to him."

"What happened!" Diane could tell Mrs. Reed was only fractions away from screeching again.

"She was abducted right off the street and changed; mutated by, believe it or not, the proverbial mad scientist." That wasn't quite the truth, but she saw no reason right then to let them know that before Sevarius had approached her with his false words about a job offer, Maggie had been homeless, living on the street. "Mrs. Reed, I'm not kidding, I am perfectly serious, and right this minute I'm looking at your daughter and my son, and they're both covered in fur." Then she flinched and held the phone away from her own ear, as Mrs. Reed shrieked, "FUR!"

Abruptly another voice came on the line, an angry male one. "What's this about my daughter!"

"Mr. Reed? As I just told your wife, I'm the mother of a man who was mutated just as your daughter was. No, sir, I wish to God I was joking, but I'm not. Maggie and my son Derek, and another man who was abducted and mutated with them, are now covered with fur, looking like, well, six-to-seven-foot-tall felines. With wings."

Probably not quite believing her, they demanded to speak with Maggie again. Diane couldn't blame them, either; even after Elisa had told her and Peter about what had happened to Derek, she still hadn't quite believed it until she'd seen him with her own eyes. Still sniffling a little, Maggie told them that yes, she had fur now. And wings. And she looked like a triple-king-sized version of their old cat Snuggles. With wings. Bat wings, not bird wings. Yes, they really worked; she could fly. Well, not quite like an bird; it was really more like gliding, and she only did it at night. No, she didn't know where the mad scientist was who'd done this to her; they'd thought he was dead at least once, but he probably wasn't. And, um, Mrs. Maza wanted to talk to them again.

Diane took the phone again and said firmly, "Mr. and Mrs. Reed, as I said at the beginning, my son and your daughter have fallen in love despite all the horrors that have befallen them, and they want to get married tomorrow night. If you'll give me your address and the name of the nearest airport, I'm going to call a man who owes my family a favor, and have him arrange for round-trip tickets for you both to New York City tomorrow, so you can see your daughter with your own eyes, and be here for her wedding." Normally, she'd have refused to let Xanatos help with anything just on general principles, even though the Labyrinth residents had agreed to let him provide the food for the wedding reception tomorrow night. But this was a special occasion, so she'd tell Xanatos that he'd by God better provide them with first-class airline tickets, _and_ five-star hotel accommodations (with a balcony view), _and_ a top-of-the-line car rental, or he'd never hear the end of it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

At 3:15 p.m. local time, United Airlines Flight 267 from Cincinnati, Ohio arrived at JFK International Airport. William and Mary Reed disembarked with their carry-ons, the normally stolid, middle-aged and middle-class couple radiating more nervous energy than a pack of cheerleaders at their first Superbowl. Another middle-aged man met them at the gate, a man with pale blond hair and a nearly expressionless face, and one hand wrapped in bandages as he held up a placard with their names in the other hand. After verifying their identities and introducing himself, Owen Burnett picked up their baggage and escorted them to the awaiting limousine. Unsure of how much he could say in public, Mr. Reed said tentatively, "Are you… familiar with our daughter?"

"Yes, sir," was all Owen would say. "Further conversation should wait until we are en route." Once they were in the limo and moving, he silently picked up a trio of manila envelopes and passed them back to the passenger seats. Each envelope had a name written on it in felt-tip pen: Derek Maza. Claw. Maggie Reed.

With shaking hands, they opened the envelope with Maggie's name on it. Out came a series of photos, drawn from the laboratory files and from security photos taken when the mutates had lived at the castle. They had been informed over the phone, but they hadn't truly believed, and now both parents gasped in utter horror when they saw what their daughter had become. "Sh-she's a monster!"

Owen pulled over the limousine. His face still expressionless, he turned to face his passengers. "Mr. and Mrs. Reed, your daughter is _not_ a monster. The term we use is 'mutate'. It is true she is no longer completely human, if DNA were the only true indicator of humanity. However, Maggie Reed still exists, still lives and breathes… and loves her parents. If you can not face that, can not overcome your evident revulsion and accept her new form, then I am authorized to buy you both return tickets to Ohio on the very next flight, and inform your daughter that her parents had missed their connecting flight to New York." He paused for a moment, then continued with his face still calm, but no longer completely expressionless, "However, if I may speak frankly, by refusing to accept her you will only justify her worst fears about herself and the life she is forced to lead now, and you may well lose your daughter forever." With that, he turned around again and silently waited, his eyes locked on the road.

David Xanatos should have been the one to make that speech, should have been the one to face these two people, more indirect victims of his criminal past. But the man who had previously faced down corporate execs, heads of state and even demigods, had been visibly reluctant to face two ordinary people from Ohio, whether or not they ever found out just what his role in her mutation had been. He had been getting ready to do so regardless, when Owen had quietly arranged for Alexander to spit up all over his shirt and jacket, and slipped out while he was still changing.

Now as he faced the road, Owen asked himself again just why he was showing such compassion for mere humans; in centuries past, Puck had always considered them more as playthings than real people. But he had been wearing this mortal guise for over fifteen years, often going for weeks or even months without expressing his powers and true form. That hadn't been a problem, back when it had been his own choosing, but now that it was no longer his choice, nearly every day he chafed at his restrictions and cursed Oberon in his soul. But over three thousand years of living had taught Puck that bitterness benefited no one, least of all himself, so he simply got on with the business of surviving as a mortal would. And he supposed that living day by day as a mortal was giving him more sympathy for them than ever before, hence his actions now. But he still had the Owen persona to maintain, so when Mrs. Reed finally said in a choked voice that they wanted to see their daughter, he simply put the limo in gear again and drove on.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The afternoon sun shone through the windows of Elisa's apartment. Sitting at the dining room table, Elisa, Beth and their parents were playing a quiet game of cards and sipping coffee and tea. Seated on the couch, which had been turned to face the sunlight streaming through the glass doors to the balcony, Derek and Maggie were curled up and dozing together.

For most of the day, trapped in the apartment by daylight, Maggie had been pacing nervously back and forth and chewing her claws, while Derek had tried to get her to hold still and finally had to settle for just keeping her from opening the windows and flying out in sheer panic. Elisa had tried to get them to take her bed to get some sleep while she curled up on the couch, but Maggie was just too nervous to sleep, and Derek claimed he just couldn't sleep without her lying next to him. (It was a romantic thing to say, but Elisa was willing to bet that the truth was, he was nervous too. After all, he was about to meet the 'in-laws'.)

When Beth and the elder Maza's had arrived two hours ago, Diane had taken one look at the nervous wreck Maggie had become, fixed her a cup of tea to calm her nerves and flat-out ordered her to sit down on the couch with Derek and not move for at least five minutes. Derek had nearly had to hold her down at first, but soon the combination of warmth from the sunlight streaming in the windows and her lover's arms wrapped around her had her nodding off. (Elisa privately wondered if her mother hadn't slipped a little something into the tea as well, but had decided not to ask.) Derek had fallen asleep even before she had, and Beth's whispered opinion was that the two of them looked utterly adorable curled up together, like two triple-king-sized housecats snoozing in the sunlight.

A knocking on the door startled the card players, even though they'd been expecting it for some time. The noise also woke up the sleeping mutates, and it took only 1.5 seconds for Maggie to go from eye-rubbing sleepiness to eyes-wide-and-fur-standing-out panic again. Derek hurriedly hustled her into the bedroom while Elisa got up to answer the door.

Owen Burnett was at the door. He gave Elisa a stiff nod, then stepped aside and gestured. A middle-aged couple hesitantly stepped into view, looking at her wide-eyed. She sized them up quickly as two people also short on sleep and only a few steps away from a nervous breakdown (no great surprise, considering the last twelve hours), and smiled at them reassuringly. "Hi! I'm Elisa Maza. Come on in!"

They hesitantly walked through the door, while Owen murmured that he would be waiting for them in the limo and quietly disappeared. Mrs. Reed was clutching her purse to her chest, knuckles white with strain, while Mr. Reed kept a similar white-knuckled grip on a manila envelope. He said hoarsely as he stared at her, "T-the driver said he was taking us to see Maggie…"

"She's here," Diane said as she bustled up to them. "I'm Diane Maza; we spoke on the phone last night. You'll see Maggie in a moment, but perhaps you'd like to sit down first," as she and Elisa guided them to the couch that Maggie and Derek had just vacated moments before.

In the bedroom, Maggie was clutching Derek's fur and mewling, whimpering words he couldn't quite make out. He stroked her back and wings, whispering, "Sshhh, sshhh… It'll be okay, it'll be okay. Sshhh… I'm here, I'll help you get through this. Sweet Maggie, lovely lady, I'm right here, nothing bad's going to happen. Sshhh…"

Out in the living room, Bill and Mary Reed were sitting on the edge of the couch, wound so tight that Diane privately bet herself that if she said 'Boo!' they'd shoot right through the ceiling. Mary quavered, "W-where is she? Where's our little girl?"

"In the bedroom. She's as nervous as you are." But she definitely was not little anymore, not at over six feet in height. "Mrs. Reed, my family has been through this before, with our son Derek. It's very important for you to understand this: no matter what she looks like now, she's still Maggie on the inside." Then Diane turned to the bedroom and raised her voice, calling out, "Maggie?"

Her son's voice came out instead, sounding somewhat muffled. "Uh, can you give us a minute more? Maggie, um, needs to blow her nose."

Abruptly Mrs. Reed stood up from the couch, her face and voice suddenly perfectly, eerily calm. "I've got tissues," she announced, as she marched into the bedroom with purse in hand. A mother always had tissues ready for a daughter who needed to blow her nose.

When she walked into the bedroom, the first thing she saw was a huge leathery monstrosity with no head but four legs, that was both whimpering pitifully and whispering something. Then the leathery surfaces shifted, becoming wings that unwrapped themselves from around two furry bodies, as two feline heads turned to stare at her. The huge black—whatever—swallowed hard, while the golden one started shivering uncontrollably. Then it snuffled. Mary finished her reach into her purse, and pulled out a handful of tissues. "Here," as she handed them to… her daughter. That thing was her daughter…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Down in the Labyrinth, Claw paced back and forth, silently worrying. Maggie and Derek had sent a message down with Mrs. Maza before dawn, saying that Maggie's parents were coming to town, and they were staying at Elisa's apartment in order to meet them. Claw could understand why; meeting them away from the Labyrinth kept the secrecy of their home secure, in case things went bad. But if things really did go badly, there would be no way for Maggie and Derek to get away in broad daylight without being seen by the general populace. Considering what they knew about the Quarrymen and their fanaticism, it was a sure bet that any Q-man who saw them would undoubtedly shoot first, and ask later what gargoyles were doing out and about during the day.

As he paced, he accidentally kicked at a pencil stub that had rolled off the rickety old table he used as a desk. It rolled across the floor, and seeing it reminded him of what had happened three nights ago, when he and Dana had undergone a pre-marital counseling session with Father Sullivan. The priest had gently but firmly insisted that each couple have at least one premarital counseling session with him. As he had said and signed to them all, it would help to clear up misconceptions about each other and their expectations of marriage, and gain a better understanding of each other, and even of themselves, before committing their lives to each other. "As Benjamin Franklin once said," Father Sullivan had quoted with a twinkle in his good eye, " 'A man should keep his eyes wide open before marriage… and half-shut afterwards.' "

For Dana and Claw, Father Sullivan had begun the session by giving each of them a sheet of paper and a pencil, and told them to each write down ten things they had never before told their affianced, whether they were proud or ashamed or completely unaffected by whatever each secret was. "I won't look at your papers, unless you specifically show them to me, though Dana knows well that I respect all secrets of the confessional. Before you begin writing, remember this… secrets can build a wall between you and your beloved. And if you take that wall down yourself, brick by brick, it will likely be better for both of you than if some improbable, completely unexpected event later on exposes your secret and blows the wall to rubble and ruin."

Those ten sentences had been the hardest that Claw had ever written; he'd broken two pencils from sheer stress before finishing, and once he'd been only a heartbeat away from shredding the page and running from the room. But he'd eventually written them down, and had swallowed hard before handing his sheet to Dana. And he'd seen that Dana had been blinking back tears, when she'd slowly handed her sheet to him.

Secrets had been told on both sides, that long night. They had cried, both together and at different times, and had become angry and amused and exasperated by turns. But by the end of that session, though he felt somewhat like he'd gone three rounds with Fang again, Claw was even more convinced that Dana was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Judging by the alternate fierceness and tenderness with which Dana had hugged and kissed him, she too was convinced of his rightness for her.

At session's end, Father Sullivan was also satisfied that this marriage would last and prosper. But he had insisted on making one minor change to the proposed wedding ceremony, just one added phrase that would, incidentally, blow one secret wide open. Claw hadn't been happy about that, but the priest had shrugged, "It's either that, or we delay the ceremony until after you're converted and re-baptized as a Catholic. I can not in good conscience conduct a ceremony with an element of falsehood in it." Claw had finally sighed and agreed.

Tonight, a part of his past life would be exposed, and he couldn't help wondering if Derek, his best guy friend in this new life, would look at him differently after his secret was out. He hoped not; after all, it didn't really affect his life now in any way, at least not directly. But still…

His musings were interrupted by an absolutely horrendous yodeling coming down the corridor, and he couldn't help smiling. Dana couldn't hear how her own voice sounded, but she knew from what others told her that she sounded very weird when she tried to speak the way a normal person would. Being a proud woman in her own way, she therefore didn't speak out loud if she could avoid it, preferring to write her words down if she had to communicate with someone who didn't know sign language. But sometimes, when she was especially happy, she would dance down the corridors, and sing. Sort of. Her 'tunes' were largely without intelligible words or melody, and an unkind resident had once compared the sounds to an oversexed gander doing an unspeakable thing with an indignant tomcat, but Claw had come to love every cracked note of it.

Dana came into his room, grinning from ear to ear and carrying a cardboard box in her hands. She proudly set it down in front of him, and he flipped open the flaps to look inside. Inside were the bouquets Dana had promised she would bring for the wedding, and a few other items as well. Dana lifted the bouquets out and set them aside with great care, signing that she would take them down to the main kitchens shortly, to keep cool in the refrigerator until the ceremony. Claw pointed to the remaining items and perked a questioning eyebrow at her, and she grinned even wider and signed back, _Wedding gifts_!_ This side ours, that side Maggie & Derek's_.

Claw picked up one of the gifts intended for him and her; a pair of hand-dipped candles tied together with a ribbon. Underneath it lay a polished wooden box with a design of roses carved into the top. Next to that lay a… well, a gizmo of some sort, though for the life of him he couldn't tell what at first glance; it too had been polished shiny-bright and had a ribbon tied around it. Underneath that was a book of poetry, obviously old and well-used but treated with love. He signed to her, _From your family_? She nodded, and he signed, _Will I ever meet_ _them_?

She grinned even wider, and signed back, _Today they finally said okay; I take you to see them on our honeymoon_!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Elisa heaved a huge sigh as she shut the door to her apartment and leaned against it. "Well, that probably went better than we had a right to expect."

"But it still sucked gravel," Derek said bluntly as he sat down on the couch again, pulling Maggie down with him. The door had just shut on Mr. and Mrs. Reed, and on nearly two hours of conversation that had veered from near-shouting hysterics to quiet, rational discussion to near-shouting hysterics again. The door had also shut on Peter and Diane Maza, who were going to follow the limo to the Reed's hotel, see the couple from Ohio settled in and then take them down to the Labyrinth, for what the Mazas all knew would be another series of shocks. It was understood by all that Derek and Maggie would have to stay here instead of giving the tour themselves, until sunset made it safer for them to fly home.

" 'Sucked gravel'?" Beth said with a quirked eyebrow from where she sat in one of the dining room chairs, which had been brought into the living room when the couch had been turned back around so everyone could be seated and see each other, comfortable in body if not in mind and heart.

"Our bro has been hanging around Brooklyn and Lexington too long," Elisa said dryly.

"Who do you think taught them how to play poker?" Derek shifted around to better embrace Maggie, who was curling up on his lap and burying her face in his shoulder. "It'll all work out, though, honey. We've just got to give them time, that's all."

"Sure," Maggie said dully. "Just more time. That's all." They could tell she didn't believe it. All during their talks, the elder Reeds had kept staring at her and Derek, but could never quite bring themselves to touch her, let alone give her a hug…

Beth shifted to look out the window, and sighed. "Remember that old saw about stormy weather meaning the gods are arguing? Looks like they're having as bad an afternoon as we've had." During the last two hours the sun had vanished behind dark gray clouds, and now it was pouring down rain with occasional streaks of lightning.

Derek took one look over his shoulder at the weather outside and said, "Good. C'mon, honey, let's go home," as he gently urged Maggie off him so he could get up

"Huh?" Beth said intelligently. "But it's not sunset yet—and it's pouring rain outside!"

"Exactly. And when it's raining this hard, damn few people bother to look up. We're going to sneak home, for a few hours to ourselves. If the parents call here, tell them we're asleep in the bedroom or something, okay?" as Derek opened the balcony door and beckoned to Maggie. She looked reluctant, but he wheedled, "C'mon, I know it'll be cold and wet, but we'll warm up again once we get home…"

"Here," as Elisa hurriedly grabbed the jar of hot cocoa mix from the cupboard and offered it to her brother. "After this afternoon, you deserve to indulge yourselves a little."

"Thanks, Sis. See you in a few hours," as they jumped off the balcony together, and vanished into the rain.

Beth sighed as she watched them go. "Hell of a prelude to the wedding, huh? But after this, it can only get better, right?"

Elisa kept her lips shut. She was absolutely not going to give the traditional reply, that things couldn't get much worse; if she'd learned one thing over the last two years, it was that saying so was an invitation to the gods to make it much, much worse.

After finishing her tea, Beth left as well, giving Elisa a little more time to catch up on her own sleep. She curled up on her bed and sighed, fingering the stone shard she kept hidden beneath her pillow, for several seconds before closing her eyes.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sunset came to the city eventually, even if still hidden behind storm-dark clouds. The gargoyles awoke on their perches with their customary roars and shard-flinging stretches, and with their customary grumbles about waking up to rain. They didn't chill nearly as easily as humans did, but they were none too fond of foul weather either; it made for limited visibility when flying, trickier air currents and reduced lift, and in Griff's case, soaking and smelly feathers as well. Lexington summed their general disgust up with one word: "Yuck!"

"Look on the bright side; the wedding's indoors," Xanatos said from his position behind their perches, standing there in his designer raincoat and umbrella, next to a similarly clad King Arthur. Between them rested a small pile of boxes, wrapped in white and silver wrapping paper and again in plastic bags. "I've got some stuff here you can give to the happy couples as wedding presents, and there's more wrapping paper and plastic wrap inside if you've found anything yourself that you want to give them."

"Oh, good! I found a book of poetry that I want to give them," Angela said as she dashed inside.

"If you've never done it before, ask Fox to show you how to wrap it!" Xanatos called after her, before turning back to the others with a wry smile. "Want me to go over what's in the boxes, so you won't be too surprised if they open them in front of you?"

"That would be good," Goliath said dryly. "I assume you mean for us to pretend we picked out these gifts for them?"

Xanatos' smile became even more wry. "If you don't, they're probably apt to burn them before opening. Even after developing a cure, I'm still not the Maza family's favorite billionaire." There was no need to reply to that; Derek's mutation was the greatest harm done to the family, but it was hardly the only reason they had to distrust him. There were also a few minor matters such as the upgraded Pack, the entire city turning to stone for two nights in a row, the Arizona encounter… "I'll be there with the food at the reception; at least they're letting me participate that much."

"We'll be glad to deliver these, but you know as well as they'll know that there's no way for us to have gotten them ourselves," Brooklyn pointed out as he hefted one of the boxes.

"Au contraire," as he pulled out a piece of plastic which he then handed to Goliath with a flourish. "It's perfectly amazing what can be bought over the Internet, with nothing but a handy-dandy credit card. Like this one here, issued today to one G. G. Wyvern. Five thousand dollar spending limit, so don't go too wild with it," he added as Goliath looked it over curiously.

"G.G.?" Broadway asked curiously, scratching his scalp.

Xanatos coughed into his fist and admitted, "Garth Goyle. Hey, we all have our less inspired moments," he said defensively as everyone around him groaned.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The gargoyles landed next to the Labyrinth's entrance just as Elisa's familiar Fairlane drove up. Matt and Elisa got out together, waving as they dashed to the shelter of the entrance so they could shed their rain gear. "Hi, guys!"

Amidst the chorus of greetings from the other gargoyles, Griff said cheerfully, "Hallo! I must say, Elisa, you look right fetching in that dress!" as he set King Arthur on his feet. "Introduce us to your friend, won't you?"

"Sure," Elisa said with a gesture to Matt, trying not to blush at Griff's cheerful comment about her dressy attire. So she didn't normally wear dresses or other feminine clothing; did that mean everybody had to comment on it! Matt had been far worse about it, when she had picked him up earlier; he'd done a double-take at her, then demanded to know who she was, how she'd gotten her hands on Detective Maza's car and whether or not she was free for dinner later on. She shoved all that out of her head again as she said, "This is Matt Bluestone, my partner on the police force. Matt, this Griff, from the London clan of gargoyles… and King Arthur. The real King Arthur, from Camelot, and if you make a single Monty Python crack all night I swear I'll kill you myself."

Matt had gaped at King Arthur, then at her, then at the rest of the gargoyles, who were all nodding to indicate that he really was the genuine article. Then he looked at King Arthur again, who gave a regal nod to him before saying wryly, "To answer the five most popular questions: Yes, Camelot, Guinevere, Merlin, the Round Table, Lancelot and Mordred all truly existed, once as living and breathing as you are now. No, of all of them, only Merlin may be still alive today, and his whereabouts are unknown. Yes, Sir Griff and I are questing, seeking my old tutor and advisor. Yes, I wield Excalibur, though it stays sheathed tonight; 'tis most unseemly to draw steel at a wedding." Then he heaved a great sigh, and admitted, "And yes, I have seen this 'movie' by 'Monty Python', to which Elisa just now referred; the London clan insisted on showing it to me one night. And while I most earnestly desire to beat Mr. Python to within an inch of his life for the mockery, it's not the first time a king and his kingdom have been mocked by a court jester. So I am willing to let the matter rest, if you will likewise refrain." Matt finally reached up and physically shoved his jaw back into place, then silently nodded.

Just before they entered the Labyrinth, Elisa and Goliath pulled all the other clan members aside for a quick but serious talk about the clones. "Look, guys, if I can accept Delilah, then you can accept your clones as people in their own right," Elisa said seriously. "They didn't ask to be cloned any more than you asked to be hatched, but they're here, and they're learning a lot more than just 'Obey Thailog' lately."

Goliath added, "Talon tells me they're starting to patrol the Labyrinth, protecting their territory just as any gargoyle would. And the humans down here have largely accepted them already. Can we do any less?"

Hudson nodded, as did Angela, but the Trio still looked uneasy. Brooklyn admitted, "I can maybe handle four of 'em, but don't ask me to talk to Malibu tonight, okay? He still just creeps me out too much. Maybe after dealing with the others for a while, though, I'll be able to stop seeing him as a bad copy of me."

Goliath nodded slowly. "Fair enough. Each of you may discreetly avoid contact with your own clone tonight, but I expect you to at least make polite conversation with the others. And if your clone comes up and wishes to talk to you, then I expect you to at least be civil in return. No insults, no snide remarks, just treat them as strangers from another clan. Because that is exactly what they are, now; part of Talon's clan." Everyone nodded acceptance, and they caped their wings and went inside.

About thirty feet down the tunnel, Matt snapped his fingers as he remembered something, and turned to Broadway. "By the way, if you'll swing by my place when the reception's over, you can pick up my copy of 'A Taste for Mayhem.' I finished it two days ago."

Broadway perked up and said, "Great! I hope it's as good as 'A Dish to Die for.' Boy, can that Martha DuBois write a great book!"

"If you ask me, it's even better than 'Dish'. And the preview chapter in the back already has me salivating for the next one, 'Sweet Lies'." At Elisa's questioning look, Matt explained, "While you were on your 'World Tour', I got Broadway hooked on Martha DuBois. She's a mystery writer who sets her stories in New Orleans, and the two protagonists are a private detective and a master chef, one of them always either getting the other into trouble or helping to bail the other out. It's the most realistic yet humorous series I've ever read, with a 'Big Easy' flavor."

"And at the end of each book, Martha includes recipes for all the dishes she mentions in her story!" Broadway added with enthusiasm. "That's where I got that recipe for oyster stew from."

"You should pass that on to Maggie afterwards," Elisa commented as they walked together. "Maybe it'll be a better way to satisfy her oyster cravings than just scarfing down can after can of them."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They found most of the Labyrinth's residents gathered in the main kitchen/dining room, across from the chapel that had been prepared for the ceremony. Claw, Derek and Maggie were there as well, and were introduced to Matt and the newcomers from England.

After making friends with gargoyles, then just tonight meeting Griff and King Arthur, Matt Bluestone didn't even blink when he was introduced to the mutates. He simply thanked them very courteously for letting him come to their wedding, and handed over the silver-wrapped boxes he'd brought with him. It had cost a few hours of his time and a fair chunk of his last paycheck to find, buy and gift-wrap them on such short notice, but after what Elisa had told him about their living conditions last night, Matt figured that a pair of 'wedding-ring' quilts would be good wedding gifts for both couples. (He silently thanked his Irish mother again, for once telling him that gifts of warmth and romance were usually better than extra blenders.)

When they were introduced to Derek and Maggie, Griff stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Maggie with his mouth open, and almost with his tongue hanging out. After handing over their gifts to the couples and kissing Maggie's hand while murmuring a compliment to her, Arthur straightened up and gave his knight a quick and subtle jab in the ribs. Griff came out of the seeming daze he was in to say, "Oh, terribly sorry! But… Miss, I simply have to tell you, you are the loveliest creature I've ever seen! An utter vision, an angel truly sent from the heavens to grace our drab existence with your beauty!"

Maggie drew back a bit in surprise and embarrassment, and ducked her head, but couldn't help smiling a little. Griff was simply being too enthusiastic, almost worshipful, to be just giving the customary compliments to the bride. She knew that Derek loved her, and she knew that Brooklyn had once been attracted to her, but she had always thought that the latter was simply because there were no other winged females around at the time. Could she really be beautiful, by anybody's standards? Judging by the earnest expression on Griff's face, and the jealous glower on Derek's as he and Claw both growled warnings at him, evidently so.

Arthur muttered to Griff as he tugged him by an elbow over to the chapel, "Complimenting the bride at her wedding is right and proper, but attempting to seduce her away before the ceremony--_or_ after it--is not the sort of behavior I expect from my knights!"

"Sorry, old boy," Griff said apologetically, even as he craned and twisted his neck for another glimpse of Maggie. "It's just that she'd put any of my rookery sisters to shame; they'd be wearing sackcloth and ashes after meeting her! She's just so… so…" He seemed almost helpless to stop the shrill wolf-whistle that issued forth.

Arthur nearly jerked Griff off his feet as he hurried him away, Maggie giggled even as she blushed under her fur, and Derek complained to Goliath, "Did you really have to bring him along?"

Just as Griff and Arthur went away, Diane came running up, looking stressed and nearly dragging Dana with her by one arm. "There you are! I've been looking all over for you," she said accusingly to the mutates, who suddenly looked both apprehensive and somewhat guilty; the power of motherhood again. "The ceremony is in less than an hour, and you're still standing about talking instead of getting ready! You two boys go to Claw's room, where your suits are waiting, while you two come with me," as she grabbed Maggie by an arm and hustled her and Dana off in another direction. Derek and Claw took one look at each other and decided that it would behoove them to do as she said, less they face her wrath again, and apologized to the others as they quickly padded away.

"Hey, Sis!" Beth said as she came trotting up seconds later. "Have you seen Maggie? Mom's--"

"She just came with Dana and got her, and they all went thataway," Elisa said as she pointed. "She said it was time to get them into their gowns."

"Mom's really on the warpath tonight, ain't she?" Beth commented.

"She's been like this for the last week, ever since they announced their engagement," Elisa said with a roll of her eyes.

Beth rolled her eyes as well. "If she'll be anything like this when either of us ties the knot, remind me to elope."

Rather than reply to that, Elisa asked, "Where's Dad?"

"He's still with Father Sullivan, helping the Reeds get a handle on all this," Beth said as she pointed off in another direction. "They freaked out big-time when the gargoyles down here woke up, though they were already pretty freaked just from seeing Maggie and our bro. I know for a fact that we handled Derek's mutation and the gargoyles better than they're handling all this."

Elisa reminded her, "You had a few months in between seeing Derek with fur, and meeting the people he'd been remodeled after. Just so we don't let anything slip by accident, are we still all agreed on what _not_ to talk about in front of them?"

Beth nodded. "We're still blaming everything on Doctor Sleazeball Sevarius, instead of Rich Sleazeball Xanatos." Letting Xanatos off the hook had not gone down well with the Maza family, but Derek himself had asked them to do it. If the Reeds decided to make a public fuss after all and tried to sue Xanatos over recompense for what had been done to Maggie, it would let out a lot of secrets that neither the Maza's nor the Labyrinth residents were ready to share with the world at large. "And we're also keeping quiet about the mutate cure they developed already, but darned if I know why we're keeping _that_ a secret!"

Elisa sighed. "I know, it's weird keeping such great news from them, but Maggie insisted. I guess she's afraid they'd try to talk her into taking it right now, even though it'd kill the baby."

"So does that mean we can talk about the baby after all?" Lexington asked. To the gargoyles, that was even better news than a cure, though they knew better than to say so in front of the humans.

"Better not," Elisa said with a shake of her head. "Not until we know for sure that Maggie and Derek have told them already."

The swinging doors to the kitchen opened again, but this time the gargoyle clones came in. Absurdly, someone had convinced the males to wear neckties tonight; Malibu sported a red bow tie with his loincloth, Hollywood and Brentwood both wore black bow ties, and Burbank wore a regular black tie tucked into his jerkin. Somebody had also found a dress for Delilah, a loose-fitting bright red-and-white Hawaiian muumuu, cut extra-low in the back for her wings. The males all looked uncomfortable, but Delilah was practically dancing in her outfit, obviously proud as can be to have such fine clothing. But she stopped dead cold, eyes wide and wings flared, as soon as she saw the clan on the other side of the room. The other clones spotted them at the same time, and also froze with wings flared, clearly wondering whether to fight or flee.

It was the moment of truth, and Goliath was proud to see that that his clan handled it well. Hudson stepped forward with his wings caped about him, and one hand stretched out in friendship. "Malibu, isn't it?" he asked Brooklyn's clone genially. "We weren't properly introduced last time; they call me Hudson. 'Tis a fine occasion we're gathering for, wouldn't ye say?"

Malibu blinked at him once or twice, then gingerly brought a hand up to shake hands with him. "Here, like this, lad," Hudson said cheerfully as he corrected the grip and clasped forearms with him. "This is the traditional way. 'Tis how warriors and protectors greet each other, and I'm hearing that ye're learning to be protectors down here."

"Yes, we are! We protect Labyrinth!" Malibu said eagerly, his beak splitting in a wide grin.

That broke the ice, and the others were soon starting conversations as well. Bronx made the rounds, sniffing each clone in turn and muttering doggish grumbles, while Lexington decided to talk to Hollywood, and Broadway talked to Brentwood. Angela went over for a conversation with Burbank, who was holding his kitten protectively out of Bronx's range, while Brooklyn walked up to Delilah. "Um, hi there, Delilah; like Hudson said, we weren't properly introduced before. I'm Brooklyn. Nice dress!"

"You like it?" Delilah preened, smoothing the fabric of the muumuu against her thighs.

"Yeah, it's very bright and cheerful, and red looks good on you!" Brooklyn was a little surprised to find out he meant those words, as he reached to clasp forearms with her. She really did look great, almost as beautiful as Angela. In fact, she was really as beautiful as Angela, maybe even more beautiful in her own way. Elisa had made a great gargoyle that one time, thanks to Titania's mirror; it was easy to imagine that Delilah, instead of being a clone-daughter, was really a gargoyle sister of hers.

"Thank you! Dana found it for me. She found ties for my brothers, too," as she gestured at the other clones. Then she looked quizzically at him, saying, "Why you not wearing a tie? This is 'special occasion', everyone says so."

Brooklyn blushed maroon. "Uh, well, we didn't know ties were required at this affair. But Talon said it was okay for us to attend anyway."

"Talon is a good ma-leader," Delilah hastily corrected herself. "I am glad he is so happy with Maggie." She leaned closer and whispered excitedly, "Did you know Maggie has a baby inside her?"

He whispered back, "Yeah, we heard. Great news, isn't it? I haven't seen a kid with wings in…" Just then, he caught a whiff of Delilah's scent, since she was standing so close just now. His eyes went wide, and he automatically leaned closer and sniffed again, audibly this time. Delilah drew back, puzzled and a little offended at his behavior, but then he drew back and looked at her wide-eyed, stammering, "Y-you're… that's impossible!"

He'd said the last bit loud enough to draw attention from the others, and several people frowned at him, gargoyles and clones alike. Goliath scowled at him, thinking his remark had something to do with her half-human heritage, but it changed to a frown of confusion when Brooklyn said in a strangled voice, "Can one of you guys come here, right now, and tell me if my nose is lying to me or not?"

Lexington was closer, so he walked up and said in mild embarrassment, "Pardon me," as he leaned in and sniffed. And leaped nearly a foot off the floor in surprise, to fall back on his tail with a hard thump. "S-she's…she's…" At the same time Bronx, having checked out all the other gargoyle clones in the room, came over to Delilah. Bronx stopped dead in his tracks when he was still three feet away, his fan-shaped ears standing straight out from his head; then he shoved in closer to snuffle at Delilah's legs and tail. Then he began excitedly running around in circles, barking his head off.

Brooklyn nodded dazedly. "Yep, you smell it too. But how? I mean…" He shook his head in confusion, then jerked in realization and said to Delilah, "Your genes! You must have a human cycle, or something like that."

Delilah frowned at him, asking "Human cycle? Like motorcycle?"

By this time the rest of the gargoyles and clones were gathering around, and Broadway leaned in to take a curious sniff. Then he drew back, too, his eyes wide as saucers. "Jalapena! She's…"

Delilah was rapidly getting pissed off, evidence that she had inherited a quick temper from one or both 'parents.' "I'm _what_! Half-human? Well, duh!" she sneered. "Everyone knows that!"

"Aye, we knew that, lass," Hudson said slowly. "But we didn't know ye're breeding as well."

Goliath had been deliberately hanging back, knowing that he made Delilah especially uncomfortable, but now he shoved his way through the crowd. "She's _what_!" Uncaring for the moment of the way Delilah twitched when he drew near, he leaned in close enough to sniff as well. Then he stumbled back, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open in shock.

Elisa stepped quickly out of his way before he backed right over her, then shoved her way through the gap he'd just left to Delilah's side, glaring at everyone else. "Guys, back off! You're upsetting her! Delilah, honey, it's okay, whatever it is," as she put an arm around her. The other clones formed a circle facing outwards, instinctively protecting their 'rookery sister' in distress, and glared at their counterparts in warning.

Brooklyn spread his hands out in apology, saying, "I'm sorry, Delilah, but you really surprised us!"

Angela stared at Burbank and Brentwood, asking, "Didn't you guys notice the difference in her?"

"What difference?" Brentwood asked angrily. "Delilah same now as last night, as all last nights!"

"Aye, she likely would seem that way, if it happened as soon as they were, er, hatched, right before the battle," Hudson mused. "Then that'd be… six weeks. Hmmm…" He cleared his throat, then asked with embarrassment evident in his voice, "Delilah, lass, does yuir old tunic fit you anymore?"

Delilah instantly burst into tears. Elisa was still mystified, but she let Delilah sob into her shoulder, while the male clones gathered even closer around. It was hard for Elisa to make out the words, but Delilah was sobbing about how Hudson was right, her old tunic didn't fit her anymore, she was becoming so fat… And finally, for Elisa, the light bulb clicked. "Oh… my… God." She stared down at her clone… her pregnant clone.

Delilah was still crying, when Elisa stroked her hair and said softly, "Delilah, you're not getting fat. You're just going to have a baby. I mean, an egg. I think," she admitted, as Delilah raised her head to look at her wide-eyed.

"A baby? Like Maggie?" Delilah looked down at herself in amazement, running a hand down the front of her dress. Every gargoyle eye in the room followed that hand down, and clearly saw the gentle curve of her abdomen outlined underneath the dress as she drew her hand across. "There's a baby inside me?"

"Not quite, lass," Hudson said, blushing. "There's an egg inside you, that'll hatch into a, well, a baby gargoyle a decade after you lay it."

"You, uh, remember what you told me and Dana, about what you and Thailog did when you were alone?" Elisa said, blushing as well. "Well, that, um, started the egg growing."

"Thailog made the egg?" Delilah wonderingly patted the curve again, then caressed it lovingly. "Little Thailog." She smiled beatifically.

Elisa wasn't the only one to close her eyes and swallow hard. After a few long moments of silence, Hudson said with determined cheer, " 'Tis new life, and that's always to be celebrated! Right, lads?"

"Right!" Brooklyn said with just as determined a smile. "Hey, we've got proof positive already that kids are usually different than their parents," as he gestured at Angela to illustrate his point. "But we're here to celebrate a wedding, right? So, let's get this show on the road already!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In their dressing room, Claw and Derek were putting on their modified tuxedos, and Derek was putting out a nonstop monologue of complaints. "I tell you, Claw, if it weren't for Maggie and my Mom I'd just burn this thing and go out in my fur," he grumbled as he folded his wings tightly shut and stuck his arms straight back, so Claw could fit the sleeves and back slots of his jacket over them. "This is downright embarrassing; I haven't needed help getting dressed since I was five!" Claw huffed in agreement as he fitted the jacket on Derek, then brought together the zippers hidden in the back slots and zipped them shut under his wings. "At least we got her to take those stupid flaps off when she put in the wing slots. Can you believe it, she wanted us in 'white tie and tails', even after I told her how glad we were to get rid of those damn tails when they started coming off from lousy circulation!"

Claw grunted in agreement, though at the time that had happened he'd been terrified. As the first mutated, he'd been the first to notice when his tail began itching like crazy, then shriveling and blackening as the fur came off in clumps. When Fang's tail began doing the same, Xanatos had concluded that there was a flaw in Sevarius' design, but thankfully only their tails had been affected. He'd brought in a surgeon to dock them all off and save them trouble later on, since they hadn't been usefully prehensile tails anyway.

"And either this shirt collar or this stupid bow tie is too small; I can hardly breathe!" Derek continued on his litany of complaints, as he squeezed in a finger and tried in vain to give himself a little more breathing room. "Well, at least the pants fit okay, sort of," as he nervously smoothed out the fabric of the trousers, which conformed to his felinoid legs and fitted just loosely enough to allow freedom of movement. It was a little embarrassing to realize that this was the first time either of them had worn pants in nearly two years. "And at least she isn't trying to make us wear shoes, like even Shaquille O'Neal's shoes would fit either of us anymore. All right, let's get you into your outfit. 'Monkey suits', sheesh…"

Claw knew as Derek helped him dress that his friend's complaints came more from nervousness than being truly disgruntled. He supposed wryly that if he could talk, he'd be chattering nonstop, too, or maybe clammed up even tighter than normal and shaking like a leaf in a breeze. As it was, Derek's monologue provided just enough irritation to counterbalance his own nervousness, though he had to keep focusing on his wings to keep them from shivering slightly; this was probably the most important night of his life.

They were getting married! Married, after he'd resigned himself to a life of silent solitude and misery. If 1994, the year he'd been mutated, had been the worst year of his life, 1996 was turning out to be the best year ever. Had it really been only six months since Dana had walked into their lives and into his heart? And now they were getting married! His wings started shivering again, and he was reminded to hold them still as Derek fitted his arms into the sleeves and his wings through the slots cut into the triple-extra-large white linen shirt.

"All right; guess we're as ready as we're gonna get," Derek said gruffly a while later as he stepped back, putting down the mirror he'd been holding so Claw could adjust his bow tie. He picked up the plain gold ring intended for Maggie's finger, while Claw picked up the ring for Dana, and they carefully tucked them into their pockets. His father had balked a little at using the last of the money from Derek's old bank account to buy rings for all four of them, but Derek had insisted on it; he wanted this to be as much like a normal wedding as possible for Maggie's sake, but it wouldn't have been right if only he and she had rings to give at a double wedding. (It would have been nice if they'd been able to go and pick out engagement rings, too, but as Maggie had wryly pointed out, an engagement as short as theirs didn't usually merit an engagement ring as well.) He nervously patted the ring pocket once, then squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. "Let's go out and face the music… Listen, you keep me from running and I'll do the same for you, okay?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Hol' shdill!" Diane Maza commanded through a mouthful of bobby pins as she stood on a stepstool, so she could work on Maggie's hairdo. Maggie and Dana were expressly forbidden to sit down, lest they wrinkle the dresses they had recently donned. They had sensibly dressed Dana in her gown first, so she could help Diane get Maggie into her more elaborate gown, and now, over an hour after starting their preparations, they were almost done. "Ahmos' go'ih… Dil'yur head lef'…" Finally she sighed, and spat the last two bobby pins out with a tired but satisfied smile. "Perfect, if I do say so myself." Dana agreed with a thumb's up and a wide grin. Enunciating clearly so Dana could read her lips, Diane said, "Now, you ladies wait in here until I make sure the others are seated; you can come out to the hallway when I knock three times on the door. Then give me time to get to my seat, and come in on cue; Dana, just keep an eye on Maggie, she knows the tune I mean," she said just before she bustled out.

Left alone for the moment, Dana and Maggie just looked at each other. Then Dana smiled wryly and asked with her hands, _Nervous_?

Maggie smiled just as wryly and signed back, _Terrified. Threw up three times today. Don't know whether done by baby or butterflies in stomach_.

_You tell parents about baby_?

Maggie sighed. _Not yet. They still too upset by fur, wings_. Really, she was lucky they hadn't run screaming into the streets at first sight of her, but their unspoken horror had still depressed her for hours; it had taken a lot of 'emergency loving' by Derek to bring her back out of it. And, she admitted to herself, Griff's recent and _extremely_ positive reaction to her had helped some as well. She signed to Dana, _Maybe in few weeks_.

Dana perceived her incipient depression and insisted,_ Time for happy thoughts_! Then she grinned slyly and signed, _Think of wedding night_!

Maggie thought wryly that if she were still virgin, that would probably make her even more of a nervous wreck, but since that circumstance no longer applied… She thought about the especially tender way Derek had treated her that afternoon, his whispers and caresses and… By golly, it was time to get married!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In the chapel, Ramone had already done his crooning version of 'The Wedding Song' for the attendees, and they had also gone through all the classical music Beth had brought for the prelude to the ceremony. Beth shrugged when she still saw no sign of her mother or the brides, and stuck 'Pachelbel's Canon in D' into the tape player again. Derek and Claw were visibly fidgeting by the altar, and several members of the audience were impatiently shifting on their benches as well; the ceremony should have started nearly a half-hour ago. Only Father Sullivan was a rock of calm strength, murmuring to the grooms that delays were to be expected; in the hundreds of weddings he had performed in his years of service to the Lord, he estimated that less than three percent of them went perfectly on time. "I'm sure all is well, gentlemen; they're just working to make themselves even more beautiful for you. Just be patient a while longer, and you will see…"

Just then Diane Maza took a quick peek inside, seeing that nearly everybody was seated, ready and waiting; she went back out before anybody could grab her to ask about the delay, and knocked rapidly three times on the door to the brides' dressing room.

Inside the room, Maggie jumped a little, then mouthed to Dana, _Show time_! Dana still hadn't quite gotten the knack of reading felinoid lips, but she got the idea when Maggie picked up her bouquet.

Diane hurried back into the chapel, and took the seat her husband had been patiently saving for her. Peter whispered, "Are they ready now?"

"Give them ten seconds to get into position," Diane whispered back, looking at her watch. And in eight seconds, she lifted a hand to cue Beth, stationed next to the stereo.

Beth took her cue from her mother, and popped in and started playing the tape for Lohengrin's 'Bridal Chorus.' Then she and everyone else assembled expectantly faced the doorway.

Maggie and Dana appeared in the open doorway, and at the sight of them, everyone drew in a sharp breath. Dana, on the right, made a conventionally beautiful bride in her high-necked, long-sleeved and full-skirted white satin gown, not overly elaborate but just perfect for her, and with a white rosette tucked into her just-this-once impeccably styled short dark hair. Maggie, on the left, was an angel. There was no better way to describe her in the gown Diane had envisioned and created for her, particularly with her wings covered in shimmering white jacquard satin with a pattern of feathers to resemble angels' wings. A high neck, long sleeves and full skirt like Dana's gown hid most of her fur and her differently formed legs. There was no disguising her leonine head, but with the white satin ribbons and roses in her hair, and the radiantly happy smile on her face, somehow that was angelic too.

Griff and Brooklyn both moaned audibly in hopeless longing at the sight of Maggie in her radiance, and even Broadway and Lexington looked a little wistful. Angela grabbed her father's arm and whispered excitedly, "Do gargoyles wear special dresses for mating ceremonies? Because if they do, I want to borrow that one!"

In their seats in the front row, Mr. and Mrs. Reed saw their daughter in her gown and her happiness, and Mrs. Reed sniffled and grabbed for more tissues. She clutched at her husband's sleeve and said in a choked whisper, "Sh-she's beautiful!" Mr. Reed nodded jerkily and said back in an equally choked whisper, "Like an angel…"

Seated on the opposite side, Peter Maza looked at Maggie and Dana with wide eyes, then whispered to his wife, "Sweetheart, those are undoubtedly your finest work ever!" Seated next to him, Diane gave a tired smile of pure satisfaction.

Seated with her brothers, Delilah smiled wistfully and commented softly to Burbank, "Prettier than the moon, even." Burbank nodded and agreed. Bronx, lying at Delilah's feet instead of Hudson's, lifted his head and snorted agreement as well. Hollywood began humming along with the Bridal Chorus, thinking it was a pretty tune, too.

For his part, Goliath was also struck by Maggie's beauty, and Dana's. But he spared each bride only a quick glance before looking out of the corner of his eye at Elisa, seated next to him. She, too, was looking at Maggie and Dana, and smiling wistfully as well. He occasionally had a hard time interpreting her expressions, but this time he thought he was reading her loud and clear. Elisa, too, liked the wedding dresses, very much…

Standing at the altar, Father Sullivan beamed benevolently with his one good eye and nodded approvingly. Right in front of him, both Derek and Claw were looking like they'd been poleaxed, completely stunned at first sight of their brides in their radiance. Then they straightened up even further, nervously shifting their wings, as Maggie and Dana began their stately walk down the aisle.

When they reached the altar, Maggie and Dana set their bouquets of roses and lilies (Dana's differed from Maggie's only by the tiger lily in its center) on the small table provided, then parted to take their grooms' arms. Derek swallowed hard as Maggie took his arm, and whispered to her urgently, "You are so beautiful!" Tears of joy shone in Maggie's eyes as she whispered back that he was, too. Neither Claw nor Dana said or signed anything to each other, but they didn't have to, their eyes speaking volumes.

All eyes were on the brides and grooms at the altar, and so no one noticed the two figures that slipped in through the open doors at the back of the hall. Both wore hooded full-length cloaks, patched several times over, that completely hid their faces, and while one briefly showed a flash of feminine white hands, the larger of the two wore patched leather gloves as well. Neither of the two said a word to anyone else there; they just stood in a shadowed corner and silently observed.

Beth shut the music off, and after a few solemn moments, Father Sullivan cleared his throat and began the familiar, age-old and well-loved ritual from the Book of Common Prayer:

"Dearly Beloved; we have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of these men and these women in Holy Matrimony. The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church, and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people.

The union of husband and wife in heart, body and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord. Therefore marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which is was instituted by God."

After a very brief pause, Father Sullivan said, "If anyone among you knows of any just and lawful reason why these two couples should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace."

Just to be on the safe side, Arthur kept a firm grip on Griff's right arm to keep him from raising it, while from the other side, Broadway kept a hand ready to grab for his other arm if it started to go up, and even his beak if necessary. But Griff only sighed sadly and shrugged, muttering something about ships passing in the night.

Then came the declarations of consent, commonly known as the "I do's". Father Sullivan both signed and spoke his words aloud to both couples, so everyone could witness them. He bade both couples to join their right hands, Derek to Maggie and Claw to Dana, then turned to Derek first.

"Derek James Maza, will you have this woman, Margaret Lynette Reed, to be your wife, to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?"

Derek had to swallow to clear the lump in his throat before he could say, "I will."

"Margaret Lynette Reed, will you have this man, Derek James Maza, to be your husband, to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?"

A single sob was heard loudly from the congregation, before Mrs. Reed smothered it with her handkerchief. Tears of happiness began to trickle down Maggie's furry cheeks as she said softly, "I will."

Then Father Sullivan turned to Claw and Dana. He said aloud as he signed, "Clarence Herbert Tidwell--"

An outbreak of murmurs greeted those words, growing louder and more amused as they realized that Claw was flinching in embarrassment. Elisa found herself muttering aloud, "Jeez, no wonder he never told us his name!"

"-Hereafter known to both God and Man as Claw Labyrinth," Father Sullivan said loudly as he gave the crowd a stern, Don't-Interrupt-the-Preacher glower, and they obediently and abashedly subsided. "Will you have this woman, Dana October, to be your wife, to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?"

Claw straightened up and nodded vigorously, and freed one hand to sign his assent as well.

"Dana October, will you have this man, Claw Labyrinth," and the priest deliberately emphasized the spoken words as he gave the congregation another stern look, "to be your husband, to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?"

Dana nodded vigorously and signed her acquiescence as well, grinning from ear to ear.

Father Sullivan then turned to the assembled humans and gargoyles and said solemnly, "Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in your power to uphold these two couples in their marriages?"

They all chorused solemnly, humans and gargoyles together, "We will."

There followed a brief prayer for both couples, and a recitation of I Corinthians 13:1-13: Love is patient and kind…" Then Father Sullivan again turned first to Derek and Maggie, and told them to join hands and repeat after him, as he recited the vows.

Derek's wings were shivering so hard he was stirring up a breeze as he said in a choked voice, "I, Derek, take thee, Maggie, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. This is my solemn vow."

Maggie's voice almost couldn't be heard at first, but she cleared her throat and started again: "I, Maggie, take thee, Derek, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. This is my solemn vow."

Then Claw and Dana exchanged their vows. Claw was shivering all over, not just his wings, but he solemnly signed his vow to take Dana as his wife, to have and to hold from that day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death did them part. Tears streamed down Dana's face but did not dim her radiant smile as she vowed the same to him in return.

Father Sullivan then asked for the rings, and blessed them before handing them back and bidding them be exchanged between bride and groom. Derek's hand was shaking slightly as he fitted the ring on Maggie's finger and said softly, "With this ring, I thee wed."

Maggie was crying so much she could hardly see anymore, but she fumbled for the ring and his hand and said in a choked voice, "With this ring, I thee wed!"

Then Claw and Dana exchanged their rings, silently signing their vows to each other as tears streamed down both their faces.

Father Sullivan then faced the congregation and said louder as he signed, "Now that these two couples have given themselves to each other by solemn vows, with the joining of hands and the giving and receiving of rings, I now pronounce both couples married, husbands and wives, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. What God has joined together, let no man drive asunder. Gentlemen, you may kiss-- Oh, Dana, ever the impatient one," Father Sullivan chuckled, because Dana had already thrown herself at Claw and fastened her lips to his muzzle. Not that Claw was complaining!

Maggie and Derek were kissing enthusiastically, too, in their own unique way. And the chapel resounded with congratulatory cheers, roars and whistles.

Soon afterwards, the silent couple in the shadows at the back of the chapel disappeared. But one of them murmured to the other before they departed by ways unseen, "We really should make ourselves known to these people someday. We have so much in common…"

"Someday," came the sighing reply. "But not yet…"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The corks were flying from the bottles of sparkling cider all over the Labyrinth's kitchen/dining room, now part of the reception area; Xanatos had brought down several cases of it, to ensure that there was more than enough to go around. He'd originally wanted to bring down several cases of fine champagne, but both Maggie and Derek firmly vetoed the idea; too many of the Labyrinth residents had problems with alcohol, either recovering alcoholics or still firmly in the addiction/disease's deadly grip. They didn't enforce the "No booze" rule nearly as firmly as the "No weapons" rule, but they didn't want to have their wedding potentially turning into a disaster if some people drank too much. Xanatos had agreed, and thoughtfully suggested the sparkling cider as a compromise.

The wedding feast spread out on the tables was enough to feed everyone for the next few days at least, and Elisa had quietly suggested that Xanatos bring down as well a small fleet of Tupperware containers for better storage of the leftovers. He'd done so, and they'd been brought down earlier along with three more refrigerators and two deep freezers that were currently sitting one side of the kitchen, waiting for the coolant inside them to settle into place before turning them on as per factory labeling. So far, the residents agreed amongst themselves as they eyed his gifts to them, this Xanatos fellow was doing okay. (To Elisa's surprise, when he overheard that, Xanatos' spine straightened and he beamed as though he'd just been awarded the Nobel Prize.)

Sometime during the night, King Arthur had found out that most of the residents believed he was merely another man suffering from delusions of grandeur and royalty (like the toothless old lady residing with them who insisted she was actually Anastasia, the long-lost Russian princess), but they were more than willing to humor him. He'd been horribly insulted for a few moments before Griff had restored his humor, but now he smiled as he claimed his royal blood entitled him to make the first toast, and they willingly gave him the floor to do so. "To the brides and grooms: may you have long and happy lives together!" Everyone agreed and drained their glasses, and the party really began.

While the wedding party and most of the attendees were in the kitchen, the benches in the chapel were stacked along the walls, to clear the floor for dancing. When they were ready, they announced that it was time for the brides and grooms to have their first dance. Instead of both couples dancing together, Derek and Maggie went first, dancing and looking soulfully into each other's eyes to the tune of Maggie's favorite song, "You Light Up My Life." Meanwhile, Claw stepped out and came back a few minutes later with a box under his arm and a tigerish grin, then ripped the top off the box and gestured for everyone to dig in. Curious, Elisa came over and looked into the box. "Industrial-strength ear plugs?" Claw nodded and gave her a pair.

When their song was over, Derek went over to one of the stereo speakers and said with a wicked grin, "Everybody grab your earplugs; it's Claw and Dana's turn!" And with that, he tipped over the biggest speaker and set it face-down on the floor, before digging through the CD's for a particular song. Meanwhile, Maggie dug into a separate box and pulled out three sets of earmuffs, the type that are used at industrial sites for extremely loud noises, but jury-rigged to fit over feline ears. She tossed a set each to Derek and Claw, and donned a pair herself.

Meanwhile, the clones were scampering out the door, though all of them were grinning, and gesturing for the other gargoyles to come along. Most of them hesitantly followed the clones out the door, but Goliath decided to stay with Elisa instead. She gave him a pair of earplugs, saying with a wry smile, "If they're going to do what I think they're going to do, you're going to need these."

Goliath hesitantly tried to install the earplugs, and growled softly in irritation at the unpleasant sensation they made in his ear canal. "What, precisely, do you think they're going to do?" But before he could reply, Claw took Dana's arm and led her out onto the improvised dance floor, just as Derek hit _Play_.

"**FLY ME TO THE MOON, LET ME PLAY AMONG THE STARS**…"

The music didn't boom out, it _exploded_ out of the speakers. Goliath involuntarily howled in protest as he found out that loose-fitting earplugs aren't worth all that much for hearing protection. Before the first verse was over, he decided that for this one time, discretion was definitely the better part of valor, and fled the hall to join the other gargoyles.

But Elisa stayed in the hall, fascinated by Claw and Dana as they danced; they reminded her so much of that dancing she and Goliath had done together, on their first Halloween. Could it be that Dana had a little hearing left after all, so they'd amplified it enough for it to register on what was left of her eardrums? The music was so incredibly loud, Elisa didn't just hear it, she could practically _feel_ it… And so, she realized, could Dana. That was why they'd tipped over the bass speaker; to start the floor vibrating to the beat. As Claw and Dana waltzed, Dana could feel the beat through her thin-soled slippers, and her smile was absolutely radiant with delight. Claw was wincing even with his earmuffs on, but his expression as he looked upon his bride said as plain as if he'd signed it, _Anything for you, darling_.

Mercifully, after that one song they turned the volume down again, and most of the people who had run from the aural explosion decide to come back in. But while everyone ate, danced, talked, laughed, drank and ate some more, Goliath had a quiet word with Father Sullivan in a side chamber, as the priest was carefully storing his vestments. When he'd finished explaining his situation to the priest, he asked softly, "Would you do it?"

Instead of answering immediately, Father Sullivan sighed and looked straight ahead at Goliath's massive chest for a moment, his face troubled as he asked himself a silent question. Then he lifted his gaze to Goliath again and said, "I don't know yet. Let me think on it, and pray on it, for a few days and nights."

Goliath nodded slowly. "Of course. I would have no man act against his conscience."

A smile flickered across the good father's face again. "Well said, indeed."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After over an hour of dancing and celebrating, Ruth grabbed the microphone and announced it was time to throw the bouquet. "All you single ladies come stand over here," she said cheerfully as she pointed, "and be glad you've got not one but two chances to be the lucky girl tonight!"

Several ladies gathered, chattering excitedly, and Beth dragged Elisa out with her to join them. As Maggie went over to join Dana, waiting on the other side of the room, she smilingly gestured for Delilah and Angela to join the crowd as well. "As far as we're concerned, if you're a single female, you qualify!"

"Qualify for what?" Angela asked with a puzzled look.

"It's a tradition," Broadway explained with a wide grin, looking both embarrassed and hopeful. "The bride throws the bouquet, and the girl who catches it is supposed to be the next one to get married!"

"But no fair using your wings or tail!" Maggie said cheerfully as both female gargoyles joined the crowd of ladies. Beth had playfully pushed Elisa to the front of the crowd, teasing that her older sister almost qualified for spinsterhood now, and now Elisa stood there with a blush on her face, wondering if she dared to go for a bouquet or not. She hadn't even told Beth or her parents about her and Goliath's new relationship yet! But she could feel Goliath's eyes on her from across the room…

When everyone was assembled, Dana and Maggie shared a knowing smile between them before turning their backs. When the rest of the room couldn't see their hands, Dana signed a quick phrase to Maggie, who subtly nodded. Then Maggie's hand went up, flinging her bouquet high into the air. Every eye in the room followed it as it went up, up, a high arc brushing the ceiling… And while they were all looking, Dana whipped around and threw her bouquet in a fastball straight at Elisa.

Elisa had been looking up at Maggie's bouquet too, and gave a startled, pained yelp when the bouquet hit her chest handle-first. She instinctively grabbed at what had hit her, and found herself with a handful of abused flowers while the other bouquet was still being fought over by the rest of the pack. She gingerly rubbed at her sore chest and glared daggers at the brides as she muttered, "Real subtle, Dana!" Dana just grinned saucily.

Angela and Delilah had gone for Maggie's bouquet along with the rest, but restrained themselves from being too enthusiastic for fear of accidentally hurting the more fragile human ladies with their sharp claws and elbow spurs. But they rapidly discovered that those fragile human females were both tougher than they'd thought, and definitely not acting like ladies! Finally, one Labyrinth resident emerged from the ensuing brawl triumphantly, holding a now bedraggled bouquet high in one fist and shrieking, "Igotit, Igotit, Igotit!"

From the bottom of the pile, Angela shouted angrily, "Great, you got it. Now get off me!"

After the 'ladies' sorted themselves out, it was time for the garter toss. All the eligible men gathered at one side of the room while Claw and Derek knelt at their brides' feet, and both Maggie and Dana sat on a bench and set one leg out, hiking up their full skirts a little so the grooms could reach under and snag the garters. Maggie had modestly left hers around one ankle (which, considering her mutated feet, was still quite high off the floor), but Dana had evidently put hers _very_ high up, and Claw's fur bristled with embarrassment as he had to reach farther in, and farther… Half the hall was hooting and hollering by the time he finally found it and slipped it off her leg.

The Trio had all but shoved Goliath out to join the other guys waiting for the grooms to toss the garters. He'd balked at first, not wanting to be involved in anything as undignified as the fight for the bouquets had become. Then Brooklyn had reminded him, "The guy who catches a garter gets to put it on the girl who caught the bouquet. Do you really want to see another guy's hands on Elisa's leg?" But before he'd even finished the sentence, Goliath was striding out to join the pack.

Rather than try to duplicate Maggie and Dana's stunt, Derek and Claw turned their backs and tossed their garters simultaneously. But the instant that they did, since no one had specifically said _he _couldn't do it, Goliath flared his wings to shove at the men standing next to him, to give himself room to maneuver. Then he leaped high into the air on powerful gargoyle legs, to snag a garter before it fell within reach of the others. One man who'd been knocked down by his wings cried foul, but Goliath ignored him as he came back down with an earth-shaking **_whump,_** the garter clutched tightly in one huge fist.

Elisa was blushing bright red as she sat on a bench with the other bouquet catcher, as the garter catchers came towards them. The Labyrinth resident who'd caught the other garter started to head towards Elisa, but changed his mind when a low rumbling growl reached his ears. Still, he was grinning widely as he knelt in front of the other woman, who grinned just as wide as she hiked her skirt up and thrust out her leg for the garter. Goliath, on the other hand, was solemn as a judge as he knelt in front of Elisa, and silently waited.

Absolutely positive that the entire world was watching, Elisa lifted one foot and extended it out. Goliath cradled that foot with one hand for a moment before slipping the garter over it, and onto her leg. For one wild moment Elisa thought he was going to take it all the way up under the skirt of her knee-length dress, and maybe even farther, but he stopped at the top of her calf and left it there. Elisa couldn't decide whether she was relieved or disappointed as he let her leg go again and stood back up. Then he bowed low, took her hand and placed a courtly kiss on the back, murmuring for her ears only, "My beloved."

Angela and the Trio all cheered, while the brides and grooms applauded, and Peter and Diane Maza exchanged knowing, resigned looks. "A son with wings, and a daughter who's in love with a gargoyle," Diane sighed. "I just know that Coyote ancestor of yours has something to do with this…"

"Hey, he didn't say for certain that he's one of my ancestors!" Peter protested. "And I don't hear you saying anything about this possibly being Anansi's fault." But he couldn't deny that while Anansi's chosen form was nothing close to human, Coyote had had an _extremely_ strong resemblance to him; possibly a family resemblance…

"Whatever. I just hope Beth settles on somebody normal, or close to it, so we have at least one grandchild we can show off at family reunions…"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Far from the warmth and gaiety of celebration, a man sat alone in a darkened room. A single lamp illuminated the desk of Oliver Grimm as he went over his corporation's financial reports. Satisfactory gains for the last fiscal year, and a strong start to the new year, despite the expenses they'd incurred in moving the corporate offices from Connecticut to New York last summer, and the more recent expenses he'd incurred while outfitting the Quarrymen with their equipment. He nodded to himself, then turned to a second set of reports: gargoyle sightings.

The first stack of papers listed all the sightings reported to the media, the police and the newly created Gargoyles Task Force; since their official discovery when the clock tower had been destroyed, the media and police had received hundreds of calls every week, sometimes as many as a hundred a night. It was impossible for even half of these sightings to be true encounters; probably less than ten percent of them were. He wondered if some of the more fantastic sightings reported, such as the one that had a gargoyle walking through the walls of an apartment in order to steal cookies off a platter, had been deliberately engineered by David Xanatos to provide a smokescreen for the gargoyles' true activities.

He would not put it past the man; Xanatos had been well known for a risk taker, incredibly daring in business deals and somehow almost always coming out on top, long before he'd inexplicably decided to befriend those creatures. Even if he had been foolish enough to offer his home to them, he had to have enough brains left to realize that a man who could not cover his tracks would be wise to make false ones to lead pursuers astray. False and contradictory sightings, and repeatedly bombarding the public with ever more improbable tales, would eventually make the general public discount even true sightings in the same way as they decried sightings of Elvis in the supermarket.

A much smaller stack of papers listed all the verified sightings. Some were by people who claimed to have been saved from muggers and rapists by the creatures, and could point to guns and knives broken or twisted out of shape, and criminals found secured to lampposts by whatever was handy, as proof of their claims. Others were by reliable Quarrymen and sympathizers to their cause, also backed up by physical evidence or by photographs.

Using those reports, he plotted them out on a city map and tried to determine a pattern. He had expected the sightings to center around the Aerie building, where they undoubtedly dwelt during the day, but instead they still seemed to center around the old clock tower. Could it be that they were still coming there to roost? No, he'd had Castaway send more teams up there to reconnoiter just last week, slipping past the police station below by pretending to be construction crews, and by all the signs that home was permanently abandoned. There had to be another reason; perhaps they were following that policewoman, Detective Maza, on her rounds. Or perhaps they had chosen a roost very near to the old home; he'd suggest to Castaway tomorrow that they should examine the surrounding buildings for likely perches.

The castle atop the Aerie building was still the most likely roost for them; if he and Castaway could find a way to circumvent the building's security, just enough to send even one man with a Quarryhammer up there… But Xanatos had tightened security so much that even a mouse couldn't get in undetected. And as much as Castaway was eager for it, right now wasn't the time for a full-force frontal assault. Not yet… but soon. Not tonight, perhaps not this month or even this fall or winter, but very soon, he would see these creatures utterly destroyed. The prophecy would not come to pass.

"Child of stone," he quoted with a sneer, a sneer of contempt that quite effectively hid, even from himself, the fear beneath it. "That prophecy will never be fulfilled! _Never_!"

He was alone in the room, so there was nobody else to comment on how, as he uttered the last word, his eyes seemed to glow.

THE END?

It's the end of the "Revelations" story arc, but you'd better believe it's not the end of the series, or of the revelations in store for both humans and gargoyles! I love feedback, so send me your comments, your pictures of the wedding, anything except smoked oysters (personally, I can't stand 'em!) Oh, and don't bother haunting your local bookstore for Martha DuBois' stories; she's one of my characters too. You'll all meet her later on!

Clear skies,

Kimberly Towle


End file.
